


Symmetry

by mantisbelle



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:52:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 68,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantisbelle/pseuds/mantisbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James has avoided looking at himself for three years now, disgusted by how uneven his body is. Qrow is a tattoo artist, and he’s ready to fix that and make James’ life bearable again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Left

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally meant to be a one-shot, but it ran a little long and in ways that I didn't exactly expect for things to go. But that's alright. 
> 
> So, this is a tattoo parlor au with ironqrow. I don't know what else to say, other than I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Comments are love <3

James got out of bed every morning and made a point not to look down. He made a point not to look into mirrors, or look down when he slipped into his clothes for the day.

Things had been this way for three years now.

It had started when James had lost nearly half his body in a car crash.

And now, he lived by the logic that told him if he didn’t look down, he didn’t have to acknowledge how bad he looked. How uneven, misshapen, and even _monstrous_ he looked.

His therapist said he was just having trouble adjusting, that it was trauma refusing to leave his mind that made him hate how he looked so much. His friends said ‘of course you’d hate it, you like things to match.’ Others just brushed it off as frustration that came from so much changing in his life so quickly.

But James?

He wasn’t any of those things.

Mostly, he was tired of not being able to look at himself because he just hated what he’d see so much.

He wanted to feel whole again, desperately.

Two weeks ago, James had met an old roommate of his from university for lunch. Glynda had said that he probably wasn’t doing well with the way things had changed because of the sheer amount that had changed.

And she was probably right.

They went ahead and had a few drinks too many that night, and an idea had been brought up that was nothing but a bad one.

He _could_ make his parts match. Not by going out and destroying what was left of him, but he could get it to at least look the same.

Glynda had mentioned people getting their brows tattooed on when their hair fell out.

When James went to his aunt Alexandria to talk to her about it, she’d said that women occasionally would have their mastectomy scars tattooed over following bouts with cancer.

If those things were possible, then why wasn’t making two arms match?

It _had_ to be possible.

James had thought about this for close to three weeks now. He’d searched every shop in his home city of Atlas, as well as a number of parlors a few towns over in Vale. He’d looked through hundreds of portfolios, and had talked to nearly everyone that knew knew about this because when he made the decision to go out and actually get his left arm tattooed, he needed to be absolutely, one thousand percent certain about his choice.

And it was that three weeks of research of soul searching that landed him outside of Emerald City Tattoos, with his phone in his hand as he tried to bring himself to go inside and talk to the artists there.

He'd done a lot of research of them, the place seemed like it was booked for months, but he was sure that this was the place that he needed to be in. The two artists, who went by Ozpin and Qrow on their website- fake names, if James guessed correctly, seemed to have a great talent for mixing mechanics into their art.

Which made them the perfect candidates for something as particular as what James needed.

But as he stood there at the door, peering inside to see green painted walls that were covered with giant, black, painted on gears and displays for piercings, he realized very quickly that he was a little bit more than in over his head. He didn't know much of _anything_ about this world aside from what he'd seen in pop culture, and that just made the prospect of going in a little more than daunting.

What if he went in, they saw him looking like a businessman, and then they laughed him back out onto the streets before he could even explain what he wanted?

What if they looked at him, learned about what he wanted, and then decided that he wasn't worth the effort and he ended up back out here, staring through the window terrified and dejected instead of just scared?

James closed his eyes for just a moment and raised his hands so that he could cover his face for just a moment before he heard the door jingle at his side, the obvious sign that someone had either just went into the store or just left.

"Hey," an overly raspy voice said, catching James' attention. James dropped his arms back down to his sides, realizing how weird he must have looked standing there, with one gloved hand and the other uncovered. He turned his head, and he saw a man standing there with black lined red eyes and a devilish smirk on his face. "You're not the health inspector, right?" The guy asked, his red eyes flicking up and down James' body for just a moment. "Because I can tell you, those rumors about this place aren't true-"

James blinked twice, trying to figure out what he was being asked. "I..." He hesitated. "No, I'm not an inspector."

"Customer?" The guy asked, crossing his arms over his chest to reveal that his arms were almost entirely covered in tattoos. "Just looking?"

"Potential customer." James managed to answer the guy. "Just..."

"Let me guess," The tattooed man began, "virgin skin. You're afraid to come in."

"I-" James grimaced. "Yeah." He finally choked the words out. "We'll go with that."

The tattooed man pushed off from the wall and swaggered his way towards James, once again giving him a quick once-over like he was looking to find something wrong with James. "How about you come in, and you and I will talk about changing that skin of yours?"

"You-" James wanted to say something, but couldn't think of anything good that he could say to the other man. He frowned, and nodded, forcing himself to walk a few steps before finally stepping through the door, with the red eyed man close on his heels. "Of course." He mumbled  when he was finally in and turned around to face the other guy once again.

The interior of Emerald City Tattoos was intimidating, in a lot of ways.

Nearly ten feet from where James was standing there was a heavily polished clear case, which held all sorts of metal bits and bobs inside of it, along with a few nicely painted tattoo guns that were probably just there for display. On top of the case, there was a heavy black leather-bound binder that was flipped open to show a tattoo of someone's too-large dragon tattoo that seemed to wind around his entire body.

The walls were painted a characteristically bright green, and had black and silver gears painted everywhere. They were lined with short black stools, and behind the counter, there was a wall with two different doors that seemed like they led back to two different rooms. James was willing to bet that was where the tattooing was done.

The door on the right was adorned with a stylized crow, painted on in silver paint, while the door on the left had a gear painted on that seemed to stretch onto the other side of the door.

Nervously, James approached the counter as the red eyed man slipped behind it and hopped up into a high seat to watch him. James looked to the walls for a moment, looking for the right words that he could say to make sure that he got someone to do his particular job. When none came, the other man spoke up.

"So, why don't you tell me what you're looking for-" The man grimaced. "Don't think I caught your name, virgin skin?"

"James." Was all that James was able to manage for his introduction.

"-James." The man finished. "What do you need?"

"I'm-" James hesitated, feeling the words that he needed catch in his throat and refuse to move. "I'm looking for someone that can help me with a rather... sensitive tattoo."

"We don't do genitalia." The man behind the counter laughed, cocking his head as he focused in on James with those red eyes. Almost like he thought James had two heads. "If that's what you're asking."

"I-" pause. "No, that's not what I'm asking."

James reached to his trembling right hand with his shaking left and found the tips of the fingers on the glove there and began to slowly peel the glove away to expose shiny metal, just out of view of the tattoo artist.  

James stared down at his hands in front of him, one metal and one silver before he finally managed to say something, just loud enough for the tattoo artist across the counter from him to hear.  "So this is going to sound weird." He looked up just enough so that he looked down at the portfolio on the counter in front of him. Frowned. Looked up at the man on the other side and drank in the man's red eyes. "But… I have a very particular job and I need-"

"This is a tattoo shop, not a sales pitch." The artist laughed. "What's the problem?"

"I… I need you to make my arms match."

With those words, James lifted his two hands into view for the tattoo artist to see, and he braced himself for whatever would happen. This was the part that he'd dreaded. He'd exposed himself on some level to this man, and now he was ready to be laughed away about how the job was either impossible or it was going to be more than James could ever hope to afford.

Well, the money part James wasn't worried about.

The tattoo artist let his eyes flick between the two hands, and then to James' face. He opened his mouth to say something, then looked at the hands again. James watched every motion of the man's eyes with extreme scrutiny- he knew that he was going to be stared at, but he needed to be ready for whatever happened at this point. He needed to be ready for anything that this man could think of to say or do.

And James wasn't sure whether he actually was ready.

Or whether he could ever really _be_ ready.

"James." The tattoo artist, started, his expression and tone of voice both growing to be deadly serious. "I'm willing to pencil you in for a consultation, since I get the feeling that it's a little more than just that." His eyes flicked back down to the steel of James' right hand, then back up to James' face. "Or-" the man began. "You can come back into my office, and you and I can chat now while I enjoy my lunch."

James' mouth gaped. He'd expected to have to say more to earn this sort of treatment, and yet he was being given it upfront and without question, which wasn't something that James had planned for at all. "I..." he steeled himself. He could get a consultation right then and there, if he wanted to. The question was just whether he wanted to do this _now_ , off the cuff and unplanned, as opposed to scheduling a time to figure this out later and slotting it into his schedule as needed.

He swallowed.

Looked the other man in his red eyes.

"If you don't mind taking your lunch break to discuss business, I'd be glad to do it now." James said, shoving his right hand into his pocket instead of taking the time to slip the glove back over it again. "Though I don't think I caught your name."

"It's Qrow." The man behind the counter said, looking bored. "I have a sandwich on its way, and I've got time." Qrow hopped down from the high seat that he was on and stretched a bit. He walked up to the side of the counter and gestured James through the gap between the long counter and the wall. "Why don't you join me in my office?"

James slipped through the gap that Qrow had indicated to, and followed the other man behind the counter to the two doors. James let himself look them over once again, guessing that the one on the right would be Qrow's, if the painted bird on the door was any indicator.

Qrow pushed the door open to reveal a tattoo artist's room, with a long chair-bed in the center that had been covered over with a white sheet, and a stool standing next to it. Along the wall, there was a low wheeled desk, which James was willing to guess was where Qrow set his supplies while he worked. The walls were painted red, with small shelves which were adorned with small objects, many of which were mechanical in nature or at the least shiny.

With a wave of his hand, Qrow directed James to take a seat on the bed, which James climbed up onto with some difficulty. Qrow took the empty stool and leaned back in it, crossing one leg over the other before looking James up and down one more time, though this time his eyes may have lingered for a little longer than James was personally comfortable with.

"So." Qrow began the conversation, drawing James' attention away from the wall, where James had noticed that there was a nice scale-model of a motorcycle engine that looked like it was mostly accurate, and onto him instead. "Tell me about the arm. What am I dealing with?"

James opened his mouth to speak, but a minor panic built up in his chest and made him want to stop almost immediately. He swallowed, and looked down at his right side, where his hand was now awkwardly clutching the edge of the bed. He blinked, then lifted his left hand so that he could gesture to how far was going to need tattooing.

Which was a difficult thing to answer, really, James quickly realized. There wasn't going to be any getting away with this without Qrow realizing that the metal and prosthetics stretched a little

further than just his shoulder. James frowned, and touched his fingertips to the edge of his left collarbone, deciding that was probably as far as he was going to be able to hide from Qrow when they finally did this.

Qrow's eyes widened at the revelation, like he hadn't been expecting for it to be such a big job. He nodded, and even screwed up his face a little bit as he came to understand what it was that he had to do. "Alright." He said, calmly. "You know that's a big tattoo for a first timer?"

"Yes." James answered. "I understand that."

"And you know that'll be expensive?"

"I've prepared for that."

Qrow leaned forward in his seat, his red eyes deathly serious once more. "Are you _sure_ you want this?"

"Yes." James said. "I... I need this, Qrow."

There was the sound of the bell chiming as someone came in through the door to the main shop. Qrow looked between James and the door to the room, and got up. “I need a minute, mind hanging tight?”

“It’s quite alright." James answered, shifting in his seat slightly as he watched Qrow leave the tiny room. On the other side of the door, James could hear him talking to someone, and the sound of plastic bags rustling. He tried to ignore the sounds, instead focusing on the fact that he was going to have to show his arm to Qrow at some point to make sure that they had workable images for the artist to work with.

And oh, how James was woefully unprepared for that. He'd worn a shirt that he could pull up enough that he could expose the entirety of his arm and how far into his shoulder it needed to go for the tattoo, but he still worried. Anyone who was observant would notice that the metal bits stretched a bit further than just his collarbone.

However, James wasn't exactly sure how observant Qrow was. And he partially just hoped that Qrow wouldn't notice at all, because if the artist didn't notice, then he still could have some piece of his dignity intact.

The door reopened, and Qrow stepped in, carrying a white paper wrapped sandwich, which he set down on the tiny counter that James had noticed when he'd come into the room. He began to slide the rubber bands that bound it off, and then looked over at James. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all." James said, letting his eyes flick back over to the many trinkets that decorated the wall. "I meant it, Qrow. I need this."

Qrow hummed thoughtfully as he stared down at his sandwich, and then let his red eyes flick back over at James. "I believe you. I'm not much in the habit of asking questions, but I will need to know what the whole thing looks like if you want it to match."

"Of course. How would you-"

"We have two options, Jimmy."

"It's James-"

"Right." Qrow said, trying to pick up his sandwich now. "So our options are that you can either strip down here, and I'll take some photos and start drawing up drafts of what this will look like and risk not having much time-" He bit into the sandwich, and let out a quiet noise of contentment along with it.

Once he'd finished chewing and the food was swallowed, Qrow spoke up ago. "Or, you and I can book a date, and do that then. I get the feeling you aren't getting dissuaded from this, and I'm willing to bet that whatever I do to you-" Qrow's red eyes traveled to James' right hand again. "-Will hurt a lot less than that did. It's your choice."

James hesitated, sorting through the pros and cons of each option in his head. He frowned, looked down at his metallic hand, and then looked up at Qrow again. "I think I'd prefer to schedule for a later date." James proclaimed, his and Qrow's eyes meeting for a moment. "Since it's pretty... extensive, having time would be good."

Qrow nodded, and set his sandwich down. He quickly wiped his fingers off on a napkin and tossed it aside before standing up, and going to the wall, where he had a heavy binder that looked a lot like the one that was sitting on the counter just outside of this room. He sat down on the chair that he'd been using and flipped it open, leafing through it until he reached a page that looked like it had a lot of time free.

"So here's the thing, Jimmy." Qrow proclaimed. "I'm booked for a few weeks, but I've got a day where nobody's booked yet. If it's as big as you say it is, I can book you for... how does half the day sound?"

"You..." James swallowed. "You would be willing to do that?"

"Yeah." Qrow smirked. "I think so. I get paid either way, so it's no skin off of my back."

"Book the date." James said, his and Qrow's eyes locking again. "And tell me when you need me back."

"Three weeks from today. Same time." Qrow announced, ripping a sheet out of the back of the binder and beginning to write down some information on it. He folded it in half with a clean motion, and held the sheet out to James. "I'll be able to give you a quote there, since I don't really know what I'm working with. But be there, and be ready for this. If it goes well enough, I might be able to start inking the lines on you."

James took the sheet and unfolded it, seeing that it just listed Qrow's contact information, a date, and a time. James folded it back shut and shifted slightly where he was sitting, slipping it into the back pocket of his pants before standing up. "Thank you." James said, getting his footing. "For everything."

"I haven't done anything yet." Qrow laughed, standing up himself and going to the door. He pulled it open, revealing the mostly-empty front of the store again. "You can thank me in three weeks when you and I start working together."

"Right." James sighed. He went to the door and stepped out, shouldered past a man dressed in green with silvery hair, and slipped past the counter and back into the front of the store. "Is there anything I should know-"

"Nothing a quick search on the internet won't tell you." Qrow grinned into the words. "Just show up, wear clothes, and be ready for some pain if you have to be, got it?"

James nodded, and shoved his right hand back into his pocket, realizing that he hadn't bothered to cover it back up just yet. "I think I've got it." James managed as he began on the way towards the door. "Thank you, Qrow."

"I'll see you in three weeks, Jimmy."

"It's James."

"Whatever." Qrow scoffed. "Three weeks."

Alright then.

James would be back in three weeks.

 

* * *

 

 

James waited three days before he called anyone to talk about what was going on. He thought long and hard on the topic, not sure whether there would ultimately be anyone out there that _could_ listen to what he was going to do.  
  
However, when he needed someone, usually he was able to get Glynda there to help him. So James called her, and when she picked up the phone to talk to him, there was a sigh of relief that went through his entire body.  
  
"Glynda." He greeted the woman as soon as she picked up. "I wanted to talk to you?"  
  
"Oh, James." She sighed into the phone, sounding a little bit like she was already frustrated with him after only a few words. "What's the problem?"  
  
James frowned a little bit, and shifted in his seat on his couch, lying back and letting himself put his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. "Do you remember how I came to you talking about tattoos?"  
  
"James, what did you do?"

"Nothing yet." James answered, a little bit offended that Glynda had so quickly jumped to conclusions about where this conversation was going to go. "But I did talk to a tattoo artist in downtown Vale about doing my arm."  
  
There was silence on the other end of the line, like Glynda was trying to figure out whether there was anything that she could say to James without sounding callous. "Are you alright?" Her voice was soft, and James felt a pang in his chest as a result of it.  
  
Glynda knew how things got to him. She worried about him.  
  
"I'm fine." James answered. "For now, at least. I don't have an appointment to start working on the design for a few more weeks but..."  
  
"So the artist hasn't seen it yet."  
  
James’ jaw clenched,and he had to take the moment to remind himself that Qrow had seen his hand. "He’s seen the hand, but I'm going to be careful when I go in for him to take photos but... Glynda, what happens if he laughs me out of there? I don't know if I can-"  
  
"James." Glynda cut in, catching his attention before he could keep on talking about his concerns. "You've been doing well, a year ago you never would have even considered doing this. If you want me to, I can come to your appointment with you, but I can't promise anything about how it'll go."  
  
James grimaced, and shifted again on the couch, once again propping his legs up and sinking back in his seat. "I know." He mumbled. "I just... Do you think this is a good decision?"  
  
"I think it's a decision which could be beneficial to your mental health."  
  
Those words shouldn't have sounded as heavy as they did. Glynda was right, this could have been good for him, it could have made it so that he didn't mind seeing himself first thing in the morning, and could make him feel less like he needed to dodge mirrors.

But in the end, the truth was just hard to face.  
  
"James." Glynda's voice picked up again, and James realized quickly that he'd stopped paying as much attention to the phone call as he should have. "James, I have to go. I'm only on my lunch break."  
  
"Oh." James mumbled. "Of course. Thank you, Glynda. I'll let you know if I need you for the... moral support I suppose."  
  
"Of course." Glynda said into her end of the line. "I'll be in touch, James. Don't worry so much."  
  
They said their goodbyes, and James was left alone with his thoughts again to steel himself for a meeting that was still eighteen days away.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, James decided that he didn't want Glynda to come with him for his second trip to Emerald City Tattoos. The weeks passed by with James living in quiet agony until his nerves built up so badly that he wasn't sure that he was even going to be able to make it to the appointment in the end.  
  
The day that he was supposed to meet Qrow, he was sick to his stomach, and he felt like he was going to break down because of the weight that had built up on his chest and shoulders.  
  
This was a _bad_ idea.  
  
However, James dragged himself to the appointment, because if there was anything that James was, it was someone that always made it to his appointments. He was dressed in a pair of slacks that couldn't show off how his legs were uneven, a tight shirt that covered up everything past his shoulders, and then a sweater over that so that he could at least make it to the shop without drawing scrutiny.  
  
Topped off with his customary white glove, it was almost enough to make him feel comfortable.

The commute to Vale was tortuous, with him jumping driving into town, parking at a parking garage, and then hopping between buses until he was getting off in downtown Vale five blocks away from where Emerald City Tattoos was. He unboarded his bus, shoved his hands into his pockets, and began the walk to the parlor, his eyes glued to the ground as opposed to who was walking in front of him.  
  
He got close to the store, and was about to turn that way when he realized that the entire time, he'd been following the same pair of black combat boots, completely subconsciously.  
  
When he let his eyes drift up, he saw the single most glorious ass that he'd ever seen in his life.  
  
When he let his eyes drift further up, he realized that the person he'd been following was opening the door to Emerald City Tattoos, unlocking the door with a hand that wore too many rings and one heavily-tattooed arm.  
  
It was then that James realized that he'd inadvertently followed and checked out Qrow Branwen.

Qrow stopped at the door, and peeked over his shoulder to see James. A cocky grin split his face, and then he pulled the door open and held it. "Hey, looks like you made it."  
  
"I-" James hesitated. "Yes, I did."  
  
"So look," Qrow said, stepping inside of the store and slipping out of the jacket that he was wearing immediately once he was inside. "I ordered in, so if you don't mind, I'd like to be able to enjoy my meal, and then you and I can get started."  
  
Qrow paused and looked down at the binder in front of him, flipping it open to find the schedule there. James watched him scratch off a name, and wondered for a moment whether Qrow had been checking the book to get James' name or not.  
  
"That's quite alright." James answered, going and taking one of the benches that lined the walls of the front room. He seated himself, crossed his left leg over his right, and reached out for a magazine to distract himself in the meantime.  
  
It was a magazine on tattooing- not really James' usual fair, but he didn't mind reading it if it could at least get his mind off of how bothered he was by the impending meeting.  
  
"Thanks, Jimmy." Qrow chuckled, making himself comfortable on the high stool that was behind the counter. He was looking at his phone, quietly, then he finally spoke up. "So I'm making your arms match or something, right?"  
  
"That's correct." James mumbled, feeling his heart beat stronger in his chest as his nerves rose. "I'm going to guess you don't have much experience with that sort of thing?"  
  
"Not like you want." Qrow answered. "But I've done a lot of full sleeves and back pieces. So it's not like I've never done extensive tattoos before."  
  
James opened his mouth, trying to think of what he was supposed to say to Qrow. He wanted to ask about whether or not Qrow was a fan of doing mechanical designs, or whether he had a lot of experience with the sorts of things that James needed to be done,but he didn't want to ask.  
  
He figured that it was probably rude to do so at this point. A good client would have made sure to look through his portfolio, and James had done that, but what James needed was painfully specific.  
  
He didn't want to think about what would happen if he ended up with a tattoo that was anything less than an exact match.  
  
The point of this was to become symmetrical, not to remain split like he already was.  
  
James didn't ask Qrow anything. Instead, he closed his mouth again and tried to act like he wasn't bothered by anything. Instead, he just did his best to engulf himself in the magazine in his lap, ignoring the fact that Qrow was there, doing whatever it was that he did.  
  
The man's lunch arrived, and James was fine with waiting through that. Soon he was going to have to reveal his body to someone, and that was terrifying. Any time between waiting and that happening was more than welcome to James at this point.

But it had to be done. 

When it was finally time, Qrow hopped down from his stool, and balled up the paper wrapper that his food had come in before tossing it into a trash bin. The front door opened, and a man came in, with silvery hair and arms that were completely covered in tattoos, to the point where James wondered if there was room to add any more.  
  
James was willing to guess that this was the other artist there.  
  
Qrow and the man exchanged words for a minute, doing very little more than passing off who was going to watch the front while Qrow went to work.  
  
Once they were done, Qrow pushed the door to his office open, and he gestured to James, beckoning him up. James sat up, and smoothed down his clothes before following after Qrow and stepping into the office.  
  
Qrow closed the door behind him, and gave him a quick once-over with those red eyes, and smirked. "So, Jimmy."  
  
"James."  
  
"Whatever." Qrow went to his desk, and plucked a camera off of it, holding it up. "So, about this arm." He frowned. "You're gonna have to lose the clothes, if it's as far as you said."  
  
James nodded. This was it. He reached up to the few buttons at his collar, opened them up, and slipped his sweater up and off of his body, and he was glad that he'd remembered to tuck his shirt into his pants so that it couldn't ride up when he did this.  
  
With the sweater off, James froze, not sure whether he was going to be ready for whatever came next.  
  
The fact that Qrow was sitting there and staring didn't make any of it any easier for him. Why did he have to _stare_ ?  
  
Qrow's jaw was open, like he didn't know what he was supposed to do or think of James' arm. Instead of saying anything to him, James just steeled himself, hanging up his sweater on a coat hook and being careful to avoid looking at the robotic arm that was now so exposed to the world.  
  
"Big job." Qrow finally managed to say. "You were right."  
  
"So-"  
  
"You'll probably want to sit down, and hold it out so that I can get some good photos. Looks like you have a lot of moving pieces there."  
  
"O-of course." James stammered the word out and climbed up onto the table-bed-chair that he'd occupied the last time that he'd been in. "I don't know what you need me to do."  
  
"Well," Qrow began. "You'll have to just let me take my time, James."  
  
"Right."  
  
Qrow hesitated, then locked his eyes with James'. "Does it bother you?"  
  
"I wouldn't be here if it didn't." James mumbled the answer. "It's... hard."

"You mind if I touch it?"  
  
"Do what you have to do." James tried to shut himself off to any feeling with those words. He didn't want to think about being touched, but it was necessary here. And it wasn't as though he hadn't gotten used to being poked and prodded over the course of the last few years.  
  
It was the cost of being a medical miracle.

Gingerly, Qrow reached out to touch his fingers to James' arm, turning it slowly and scanning over every detail that he could like he would somehow find all of the secrets of the universe in the grooves of the metal. 

When James watched him, he felt more like he was going to fall apart at the joints because of the contact. Because of the scrutiny.  
  
The only one that had been able to give the limb such close looks since the accident had been his doctors, really. James couldn’t bring himself to look at it so closely. So now that it was exposed, and Qrow was looking to know how every piece fit together, James almost felt sick to his stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut and looked away from Qrow.  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Qrow asked, pulling his fingers away so that he could get the camera. "Because I know I'm curious."  
  
"I was in a car crash." James explained. "It was... It was bad."  
  
"Clearly." Qrow looked at him, and their eyes met for just a moment. Qrow stood up, stepped forward, and angled the camera so that he could get a good view of what James' hand looked like. "You know getting your hands done is going to hurt, right?"  
  
"I figure it's all going to hurt." James answered, holding up his hand, unsure of what he was supposed to do with it. Qrow, realizing what was going on showed a hand of his own and turned it, so that the top of his hand was exposed the most prominently, and spread his fingers wide.  
  
James mimicked the motion.  
  
Qrow took the first photograph, and then once again mimed how he wanted for James to hold his hand out, this time holding it straight so that there could be a head-on angle taken.  
  
James mimicked again, and Qrow took a second picture.  
  
The next hour was a ballet of this, with Qrow creating a motion or giving James something to copy and then James following after with a similar motion of his own.  
  
By the time they were done, there must have been close to fifty photographs taken of James' arm. Qrow sat down on the stool with his camera in hand, going from picture to picture in search of something that James wouldn't have been able to identify.  
  
"So." Qrow chuckled, looking up at James. "You can cover back up if you want to."  
  
Those words might as well have been heaven sent, James thought. He stood up, and crossed the room again so that he could get his sweater, which he was close to pull back over his body so that he didn't have to look at the damaged right arm anymore.  
  
"Do you have any idea how long it will take?"  
  
"It'll take a while," Qrow answered, as he turned to the tiny desk space that was along the wall. He pulled out a small tray from underneath it, where there was a laptop sitting, and opened it up. "First I'm going to have to print everything, and then I'll have to start working on outlines for your left arm."  
  
"Do you want to-"  
  
"I'm not going to need pictures." Qrow chuckled, leaning back in his seat. "It's just the canvas."  
  
James relaxed back down onto the table, and for just a moment, he thought back to being in the hospital, where he'd had to spend a lot of time on a bed that wasn't too much unlike this one.  
  
It wasn't comfortable to think about how he was, in all likelihood, going to end up lying in this one for hours upon hours.  
  
James wondered whether there was room for lunch breaks during tattoo sessions, but pushed the thought back. That was something to worry about for when he was _actually_ getting this done.  
  
In the other room, there was the sound of a printer coming to life as it began to run off photo after photo. James tried to take comfort in it, but he couldn't do that. Not so easily.  
  
If anything, it was just permanent evidence of the ugliness of James' arm that was probably going to end up sitting around this shop for ages. He almost expected that it was going to be treated as a portfolio piece by Qrow at some point.  
  
At least, it probably would if his tattoo came out well at all.  
  
Qrow turned in his chair, which squeaked quietly as he faced James. "How're you doing there?" Qrow asked, his voice raspy. He crossed one leg over the other and made himself at home, even letting the back of his chair touch the desk behind him. "I know that was tedious."  
  
"I'm alright." James answered, though his voice was tight. He wasn't used to the scrutiny, and while he knew that Qrow was acting surprisingly relaxed about the whole thing, it still wasn't quite enough to make James feel better about the whole thing.  
  
"Are you?" Qrow asked, letting an eyebrow raise as he watched James. "Because you've been quiet."

"I'm-" James frowned, looking for the right words that he could say to Qrow. "I'm not really used to people seeing it."  
  
"And you're getting a tattoo to match it?" Qrow leaned in slightly, his eyes narrowing in some sort of disbelief. James realized what was going on, and yeah, it definitely did sound weird.  
  
He sighed heavily, looked down at the right hand, and began to pull a glove on to cover it back up. "I've had it for three years now." James mumbled, hoping that he would be able to get Qrow to realize what was going on without explicitly saying it. "I don't like all the looks I get because it's so..."  
  
"Mismatched?"  
  
"Yeah." James answered. "That."

"You go about things like you don't even like seeing it though." Qrow pointed out, leaning back in his seat again. "So what's the deal with that?"  
  
"I..." James inhaled, and almost chewed his lip for a moment before coming up with an answer for Qrow. "I never quite adjusted to it. Bad reminders, you know?"  
  
"Yeah." Qrow said, looking down at his exposed left arm for a moment, where James was able to see a tattoo of a bird flying up, with red and black gradient feathers streaming down towards Qrow's wrist. "I get that."

James didn't ask, he knew better than to do that. He instead just nodded politely and took pleasure in the fact that he and Qrow seemed to have built up some comfortable distance between the two of them. 

Qrow sat up, met his eyes, and smiled. He stood up, and then stretched slightly, looking at James. "So look," Qrow started, catching James' attention. "I know I've got you booked for the whole day, but I think that I'm going to need a few hours to get started on drawing out the design for you." The red eyed man looked around the room, then down at the laptop that was at his desk, where there were still a number of photos of James' arm being displayed. "If you want, you can head out, and I can call you back over when I have something for you."  
  
James hesitated, not really sure whether or not he wanted to go or whether he wanted to stay there so that he could supervise Qrow's work at the very least. "Do you have any idea how long it'll take?" James finally asked.  
  
"Should be an hour or two, in theory." Qrow answered, his and James' eyes meeting for a moment as Qrow flashed a cocky smile. "I'm serious. I'll call you."  
  
"You have my number?" James asked, reaching into his pocket so that he could get a pen if he needed to write it down.  
  
"Yeah, I've got it." Qrow chuckled. "It's in the book."

Their eyes met again. James pulled his gaze away. "Right." He chuckled, voice low. "Got it."  
  
"Go ahead." Qrow said. "I'll call you when I need you."  
  
James stood up, smoothed down his clothes and checked that the glove on his right hand was secure before stepping out of Qrow's office.  
  
He didn't know where he was going to go, or what he was going to be doing while he was out, but he figured that if what Qrow wanted was to be left alone for a bit then it wasn't the worst thing that James could do.  
  
On the way out, James passed by Qrow's silver-haired coworker before stepping outside and onto the street. Almost all at once, he felt like most of the admittedly minimal confidence that he'd felt when he was in Qrow's office had slid back out of him.

James shoved his hands down into his pockets, let his head bow, and began to walk towards the small mall that served as a bus stop that was about six blocks away from him. He didn't know what he would _do_ there, but maybe getting something to eat wasn't a bad idea.  
  
He was about three blocks away when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. James reached in, pulled out the phone, and saw that the number listed wasn't a familiar one.  
  
James frowned, and opened the message, to see that it was from Qrow, with nothing more than a quick message that read simply:

> _I'll let you know if you should eat. Mind getting me some fries while you're out? - Qrow._

It was an odd request, James thought, but he didn't particularly mind picking up some food for Qrow while he was out. There was even the possibility that he would be able to get the cost of whatever he got for Qrow detracted from the final cost of his bill.

James typed a quick reply to Qrow, and continued his walk towards the mini-mall where he was going to be spending some of his time. He didn't have even the slightest idea as to what he was going to do while he was there other than eat maybe. He figured that he could window shop for things that he didn't need, but that wasn't necessarily what James wanted to do.

With a sigh, James stepped into the mall and made a beeline for the food court. He stopped just outside of it, and checked his phone again to see that there was another message from Qrow waiting there, this time with a picture.  
  
James felt his heart speed up in his chest for a moment when he realized that he might be seeing the first stencil that Qrow had finished. He opened the picture, and looked it over, seeing that it was a side by side between the photo that James had left with Qrow of his hand and a drawing that tried very hard to emulate the same outlines as James' fingers.  
  
It looked good, if not at all to scale, but James just worried about the fact that he didn't know how it would look on skin. He figured that there was still going to be a lot that was different between organic him and metal him.  
  
Tattoos couldn't emulate the shine of metal, not in the realistic sense.  
  
Tattoos couldn't take away the fact that his ability to feel on his left side and on his right side were always going to be fundamentally different.  
  
Tattoos couldn't make him feel whole again.  
  
No, in all likelihood, all that the tattoos would do would be giving him the chance to look down at himself and not be immediately repulsed.  
  
He hesitated for a long moment before sending a response to Qrow about the stencil, along with the question of whether he should come back by the shop with the fries or not.  
  
The response was an almost immediate _'Yes_ .'  
  
James nodded, shoved his phone back into his pocket, and went to the first food stand that he saw which served fries. He stepped into the line, bought Qrow's fries and a small sandwich for himself, and began the walk back to the store with something unpleasant churning in his stomach.  
  
What if he got back and found out that the job was impossible?  
  
What if he got back and Qrow had different ideas about how to do the tattoo?  
  
What if he got back and was just given a vague "come back in three weeks?”  
  
When he stepped into the store again, that silver-haired man was still at the counter, though this time he was talking to some kids about piercings. He looked up when James came in, blinked once behind a pair of too-small sunglasses and just leaned back in his seat and rapped on Qrow's door with his knuckles.  
  
The door opened, and Qrow peered out from behind it. He had a pencil tucked behind his ear, and he honestly looked _really_ good.

God, what was _wrong_ with James?  
  
"What's up Oz?" Qrow asked the silver haired man. He was answered with nothing more than a wave of a pencil, and then Qrow looked up to see James. Unsure of what he was supposed to do, James just lifted the bag of food like that would be enough to explain his presence.  
  
Qrow cracked a smirk. "Jimmy." He chuckled. "Come on in, I've got some stuff to show you."  
  
James nodded and went to the gap in the counter before slipping through. He stepped into the room with Qrow, and closed the door behind him. Qrow's first reaction to James' presence was to reach out to take the bag of food that James had brought along.  
  
With a sigh, James opened up the bag and pulled out the carton of fries that he'd gotten for Qrow. The fries made their way to the desktop, and then Qrow was turning, with a few sheets in his hands.  
  
"Alright, so-" Qrow began to leaf through the sheets, pulling one out from the middle of the pile before passing it across to James. "So I went ahead and I did a mockup of how this is going to work, and it's weird."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, it's like tattooing a lot of small tattoos and then doing some bigger ones at the joints where everything connects." Qrow explains. "I mean, it's not a perfect explanation but-"  
  
James looked down at the sheet, where he saw a few small-sized versions of what his hand and arm looked like. It almost reminded him of a building schematic, in a lot of ways. But what was important to James was that it looked accurate enough to what James' arm did.  
  
"It looks accurate." James mumbled before passing it back across to Qrow. "Are you going to need me for getting the scale accurate?"  
  
"Yes, actually." Qrow answered. "Mind giving me that fleshy arm of yours?"  
  
Those words did actually bother James, to a pretty high degree. he was already aware enough in the gap of how the two sides of his body, and he really didn't need the further reminders of  those things.  
  
Qrow didn't know, James reminded himself. All Qrow knew about was the arm, not the fact that James also was completely robotic on his right side. Qrow didn't know about the replaced hip, or the fact that the seam went all the way over to the center of James' chest.  
  
No.  
  
Qrow didn't know the full extent of the damage.

And James wasn't exactly counting on wanting to come back to get more work done to make his body more even.  
  
One large tattoo James could deal with, but fixing everything would make the tattoo close to being full body. He didn't have to look at anything below the waist for the most part, and his chest was easy enough to avoid looking at.  
  
The main issue was always the arm.  
  
Qrow pulled out a few more sheets of paper, and was getting his pencil ready. He looked up at James for just a moment, and then back down at his pencil. "You mind ditching the sweater again, Jim?" Qrow asked.  
  
James nodded, stood up, and pulled off his sweater so that he could expose his arms again. He put it back up on the coat hook that he'd used earlier, and then looked at Qrow, who didn't say anything more than just gesture towards the table-bed again.

With a nod, James stepped forward, and climbed up onto the table as carefully as he could. He made himself comfortable, and soon Qrow was climbing up onto the bed-table alongside him with a sheet of paper.  
  
"Alright, so, I'm going to need you to give me your hand first." Qrow said, and James obliged, giving Qrow his flesh and blood hand to work with. Qrow took it in his hand, and laid the paper on top of the back of James' hand. "Try to stay steady." Qrow asked, and then James could feel the sensation of the penci gliding over the paper.  
  
James didn't look at Qrow. He didn't give the other man the satisfaction of knowing what was going on in James' head, though he didn't know why he was worried about that. Qrow was just a tattoo artist, James reminded himself.  
  
There was next to no way that Qrow would be interested in learning more about James.  
  
Piece by piece, they worked to figure out the size and proportions for the tattoo, with James following Qrow's directions while Qrow worked. The final piece was putting together how it would connect into James' shoulder, and Qrow took an extra long amount of time on that final part.  
  
With all of his tracing worked out, Qrow pulled away from James and turned in his seat so that he could once again hunch over his work. "So," Qrow said, his voice almost sounding a bit hopeful. "You've had all of this for three years, right?" Qrow asked, looking back over his shoulder so that he and James could make eye contact.  
  
James frowned, realizing that this was probably going to force him to talk about what had happened. "Yes," James began, feeling his jaw tighten unconsciously. "That's correct."  
  
"Why are you only choosing to do this now?" Qrow said. "Usually when people come in looking for medical cover ups it's done as a pretty immediate thing. Not... three years down the line."  
  
James hesitated on an answer. It was an exceptionally good question, he thought, but he wasn't sure if there was a way to answer it without coming off sounding pathetic. He half-coughed and made a point to look away from Qrow as he looked for the best possible answer. He knew that the hesitation would show, but James had already accepted that.  
  
He was almost willing to bed that Qrow had also figured that these were sensitive questions as well.

"I..." James started. Stopped again. Inhaled. "I decided to turn to this after more... traditional therapies didn't do much for me." He explained, and hoped that Qrow wouldn't end up raising an eyebrow over that.  
  
In the end, James couldn't even bring himself to look over at Qrow.  
  
"Makes sense." Qrow finally commented, over the sound of a pencil scratching against paper. "There's nothing wrong with that, you know?"  
  
"What?" James asked, a little bit taken aback by Qrow's comment.  
  
"Traditional therapy not working." Qrow said. "I've seen a lot of people come through looking for tattoos for therapeutic purposes. You know, reminders of strength, that sort of stuff."

"I-"  
  
"Look." Qrow said, turning in his seat now so that he and James could make eye contact. His red eyes were intense, but James almost had to make a point not to look over at Qrow. "Look at me?" Qrow asked, his voice softening for a moment.  
  
James sighed heavily, and brought himself to make direct eye contact with Qrow. Instead of him pausing, for the first time, Qrow was the one to freeze. The other man blinked, his red disappearing behind his eyelids for a moment before reappearing.  
  
Qrow's mouth opened slightly. Closed. Qrow half coughed and then he finally began to speak again. His expression was impossibly soft, and that was comforting to James, at least on some level. He didn't know why Qrow would have such softness about him, but James really didn't mind wondering at the moment.  
  
Finally, Qrow spoke up.  
  
"Look, Jim. Whatever you've been through, it's clearly been kind of horrific." Qrow said, his voice as soft as his eyes. James almost wanted to drown himself in both, but he didn't know why that was. "Coming to do this it's... it's stronger than you think. I get it. This is personal stuff."  
  
Qrow's eyes narrowed again, and he leaned forward, forcing direct eye contact between him and James, this time more intense than before. "So I'm going to ask you this again, James. Do you want to do this?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Are you sure?"  
  
"Yes." James paused. "I need this, Qrow."  
  
Qrow nodded, leaned back in his seat, and watched James' expression. "I'm not going to force you to say anything about it that you don't want to. You're a nice guy, Jim. And I'd be happy to work with you to get this part of yourself back."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Qrow stood up. "Eat your sandwich, Jim. Maybe take a nap if you think you want to, that thing's more comfortable than you know. I have work to do."

“Are you-”

“Sure?” Qrow chuckled, reaching for a fry and popping it into his mouth. “Yeah, I am. It’s better if I can just talk to you directly, and I don’t mind the company.” 

  
James nodded, and reached for the bag that he'd left his sandwich in. He had the feeling that whenever he woke up, Qrow was going to have something there for him to look at.  
  
It was only a _little_ intimidating to think about.

James was woken up five hours later by the feeling of Qrow shaking his left arm. His eyes opened, and James sat up partially. The first thing that James realized was that everything was stiff, since these beds clearly weren't meant for sleeping on.

"Hey." Qrow whispered, his voice sounding craggy like he'd had a few smokes in the time that James was asleep. "It's almost closing time, I'm not quite done with all of this stuff." Qrow gestured to his desk, which was still lit and was almost completely covered with unfinished pieces. "I think you should probably head home."

James opened his mouth to protest, only to have the concern waved away by Qrow. "I'm serious, Jimmy." Qrow said, keeping his voice soft as James pushed himself upright. He rubbed at his eyes and brushed his messy hair back out of his face with his left hand, only to have it fall back a second later.

"Do you want to schedule another appointment?" James asked, quietly. "Because-"

"I'll slot you in for a week from now, okay?" Qrow said. "We'll make it a day long job, it'll be good. I want to actually get you under my pen sometime, preferably sooner than later."

"How much do I owe you?" James sat up, trying to ignore the twinge in his side that came with the motion. "Because-"

"Nothing's been done yet but labor, Jimmy." Qrow said, waving the concern away as he slid back over to his desk, rifling through the papers in search of something useful. "I'll call you in the morning to confirm a day, alright?"

"How much _will_ I owe you?"

"I'll let you know on the phone?" Qrow asks, cocking his head slightly. James nodded, figuring that it was probably about the best answer that he could hope to get from the other man at this point. He forced himself down from the table, and found himself gritting his teeth when he felt a pain shoot up his left side.

How long had it been since he'd taken his medication?

James tried to shake it away from his mind and just nodded. "Okay." He finally whispered, not sure whether there was anything that he could actually say to Qrow or not. "I'll talk to you."

"For sure." Qrow leaned back in his seat, shooting James a look over his shoulder as James went to the coat rack to get his sweater, which he was quick to slip back into before heading to the door and pushing it open. "I'll see you soon, alright?"

"Alright." James mumbled. "Thank you, Qrow."

"There's nothing to thank me for yet, Jimmy. I'm serious, I'll call you." Qrow picked up a pencil, creating another outline, this time it looked like it was based on the way that the metal pieces around James' elbow fit together.

"Bye."

"Bye." Qrow answered finally, and then James left the shop to limp his way back to the bus stop and hopefully manage the drive home home.

As soon as James was home, he dragged himself to his bedroom and collapsed into the bed, unable to even think about moving anymore as exhaustion overtook his body. When he took his painkillers, he drifted off quicker than he should have.

In his dreams, James couldn't stop picturing a pair of red eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

James was awoken at 11:23 in the morning by his phone ringing off the hook. He managed to pick his head up, squint over at the bedside table where he'd left his phone the night before, and quickly realized that whoever was calling him, they were probably calling him for something urgent.

He sat up halfway, and turned to grab his phone with a heavy sigh. He leaned back against his headboard, let his eyes slip shut, and answered the phone with a groggy "Hello?"

"Hey there Jimmy," The voice on the other line said, sounding too gravelly to be cheerful but still managing to do so. "It's Qrow, I was supposed to call you?"

James blinked and looked over at his alarm clock, which started at him with the face of betrayal as it displayed the time proudly. He should have been up a few hours ago. "Yeah." James said, trying to hide how tired he was sounding. "Just to confirm an appointment, right?"

"Yeah, that's it." Qrow answered. "I've got a free day next Monday if you want it. I'm sure you'll need to get the time off from work or whatever you do, but-"

"I'll be there." James said, not giving Qrow a chance to finish. "Don't worry about it on my end, I'll be there." James turned his face so that he could yawn away from the phone at the very least. He didn't necessarily want Qrow figuring out that he'd managed to wake James up.

"Alright." Qrow's voice said on the other line. "I've got a lot of work to do, Jim. I'll call you when I think it's done, and I might be able to slot you in so that you can come and check it out."

James nodded, but realized a moment later that there was no way that Qrow would be able to see that since the two of them were on the phone. "Alright." James finally managed to say, blinking. "I look forward to hearing from you."

"It'll be sooner than later." Qrow said, chuckling. "Go back to sleep, Jimmy."

 _Dammit_.

"It's James." Was all that James could think of to say.

"Whatever." Qrow scoffed on the other line, sounding entirely too cocky for his own good. "I'll see you soon, Jim. Go back to bed, we'll be in touch."

Before Qrow could hang up, James felt a wave of clarity in his mind. "Any idea how much this is all costing me?" James asked again, this time hoping that Qrow would be able to give him some sort of answer.

On the other end of the line, Qrow was entirely too silent before he finally spoke up. "Couple hundred at the very least," Qrow answered. "Don't worry, I'm gonna give you a discount."

"A discount?"

"Yeah." Qrow chuckled. "It's the attractive person discount. Me and Oz both get to use it once a year?"

 _What_?

Qrow only laughed on the other end of the line, not bothering to explain himself to James, something that James wasn’t sure whether he was grateful for or not. There was a moment of silence, where James was just stuck at an absolute loss for words before Qrow spoke up again.  
  
"But really, Jim." Qrow said, snapping James back into reality. "It'll be a couple hundred, don't worry about it too much. I'll see you on Monday, alright?"  
  
"Right." James finally managed, though the words didn't come out well. "Just call me if you want me to come in."  
  
"Will do." The words were followed by yet another laugh. It was light, like Qrow was actually enjoying talking to James for some reason. "Monday. Be there."  
  
"I'll be there." James said with a heavy sigh as he let himself settle back into his bed. "I'll see you then."

"Sounds good." Quiet. "Take care, Jimmy."  
  
Click.  
  
That was it, Qrow hung up the phone and James just found himself staring at his phone for a solid minute after Qrow was gone. He frowned, reached out to the bedside table, and set his phone back down where it belonged.  
  
He got up and went about his day.

 

* * *

 

Two days later, James got a text message from Qrow, requesting that he come to the shop sometime around eight that evening. Due to the fact that James received this message at precisely 11:23 in the morning, that made going to Emerald City Tattoos the only thing that James was able to think about over the course of the entire day.  
  
His day was spent around his home city of Atlas, running errands and going out for a walk with Glynda while she was on her lunch break. She wanted to talk to him about an idea that she had to streamline the process of teaching certain programs to her students.  
  
James didn't mind. A lot of the time, she just needed someone to talk the problems through to, and since James had a history in engineering, he was able to piece together how some things were supposed to work.  
  
He forced himself through the rest of the day when he was alone, until finally, he had to drive out to Vale so that he could meet with Qrow for the first time in a while. Despite his meetings with Qrow before, and how they'd gone, James was still worried that he'd go in and find out that his needs were impossible to meet.  
  
It wasn't a good feeling.  
  
Even if it was a completely unfounded worry on his part, he still worried.

He was halfway through his drive back to Vale when he realized with all too much clarity that since the accident, he'd _never_ trusted someone with his body as much as he had Qrow. He hadn't dated anyone, he wouldn't let himself go outside without a sweater heavy enough to cover up the damage on James' arm, and that wasn't even thinking about the glove.  
  
But Qrow?  
  
Qrow had seen the arm. Qrow hadn't just seen the arm, he'd gotten to see _all_ of James' arm. He probably knew every nook and cranny of the limb better than James even did at this point, since the man had taken so many photos of the arm and probably had spent the entirety of the last three days working on tracing out every piece.  
  
It was enough to make James actually wonder whether Qrow knew anything about mechanics or not. Perhaps if Qrow did, then if James ever had upkeep he couldn't do, he could get Qrow to help him out.  
  
Maybe.  
  
It was probably just really stupid to think about.  
  
After half an hour of driving, James parked at the garage that he usually parked at when he came into the city before walking down to the bus station outside of it. He didn't like driving in cities much these days, but he was okay driving from one city to the other.  
  
But being in a car in close quarters with others?  
  
James couldn't handle that anymore.  
  
Not since the accident.  
  
He made his way across the city, until he was in downtown Vale taking that walk to Emerald City Tattoos that had already become all too familiar to him. When he arrived at the shop, it looked like the front of the store had gone dark.  
  
James stopped at the window outside, and cupped his hands around his face so that he could get a look in. Towards the back, he saw two men sitting together, with the smaller, thinner one seated on a counter top while the other was leaned forward onto it. It looked like they were going over some paperwork together, and it took James a moment to realize that he was probably seeing Qrow and the mysterious Ozpin.  
  
He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself down before touching the door, ready to pull it open, only to find that it didn't move when he pulled against it. James frowned, hearing the door rattle.  
  
Inside the store, Qrow hopped down off of the counter and came to the door, doing some sort of complicated thing with the door before pushing it open.  
  
The first thing that James saw when the door opened properly was Qrow's red eyes.

"Qrow." James greeted the smaller man. "Am I late?"  
  
"Nah," Qrow said, stepping back so that James could come into the store. "Just on time, really. I've got some stuff I wanted to show you."  
  
James nodded, and followed Qrow inside, letting the door swing shut behind him. He looked at Ozpin for just a moment before looking back at Qrow. "So?"  
  
"Just wait at the counter." Qrow said, flicking on the brighter lights before he turned to walk to his office space. James nodded, went to the counter, and waited with his hands in his pocket. To distract himself while he waited, James looked down into the small glass cabinet to look over its contents.  
  
Hundreds of studs for piercings, in just as many colors and designs.

James didn't personally see the appeal, but he supposed there was some art to them.

Qrow made his way back across the store to where James was waiting with a gigantic artist's folder in his hands. The folder had been drawn on pretty heavily, with drawings of everything that someone could possibly think of on it. There were pretty girls, ears of corn, birds, even a few wolves and imaginary monsters. 

The folder was slid onto the counter and into the space between James and Qrow, and then lifted up the front cover to reveal, sitting just on top, a picture of what looked like one of the pieces that made up James' bicep. Qrow lifted it up and set it down on the other half of the folder before moving from piece to piece.  
  
Eventually, in individual, drawn bits, James' arm was laid out for the entire world to see, with every point of construction laid out in paper.  
  
And when James looked down at the whole of it, he really didn't know what he was supposed to say or do.

This _was_ his arm, in a simplified form, but this was it. Every part was exact, every line was clean, and he figured that Qrow had probably also been going through his colors to try and get everything as close to the real thing as possible, if the swatches at the bottom of the folder were anything to go by. 

James really had no idea what he was supposed to say.

It was perfect. It was exact.

It was _too_ perfect, _too_ exact. 

He wondered how many hours Qrow had poured into getting everything correct.  
  
"So," Qrow said, leaning forward so that he was in James' line of sight before peering up at James. "What do you think?  
  
"How did you-?" James tried to think of whether or not there was a way that he could properly ask Qrow anything about this. There wasn't one, James realized quickly. Not one that wouldn't come off as stupid to ask and even worse for Qrow to have to answer. "It's amazing."  
  
Qrow chuckled quietly. "I know," he said, sounding entirely too self assured about things for James' liking. "It's why I'm a professional." James and Qrow's eyes met, and that was when Qrow decided to nod and keep on talking. "So, look, we talked about how this was going to be a big job."  
  
"We did." James mumbled, trying to keep himself from reaching out and trying to pick up one of the stencils so that he could turn it over in his hands. He didn't want to ruin it, but he really wanted to get a better look at the craftsmanship of each of Qrow's lines. "How long is this going to take?"  
  
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, actually." Qrow said. "This is going to have to take more than one sitting by the looks of things. One for the lines, then another to do as much of the coloring as you can handle before we finish it off in a third if we have to."  
  
James hesitated, not sure about what he was supposed to think. There was a part of him that had expected that he'd need to take multiple appointments, with some amount of time to heal between them. It was just going to be a matter of how long it would take to get the tattoos done, and how long it took to heal.  
  
"Okay." James finally said, looking up into Qrow's eyes. "I'm not really used to this whole thing, I'm going to have to just trust you on this."  
  
Qrow nodded, and looked down at the work in front of him. "I can book a full day for you," He started. "The two of us already talked about that, so that's not a huge deal. You're not going to want to eat before you come in, though. I expect you want to avoid getting sick just as much as I do. Also, you won't want sleeves."  
  
Those words left James frozen for a moment as he realized what that was going to mean. He was going to have to, at the very least, leave the shop with his arm exposed when he didn't have the two limbs looking perfectly symmetrical. He felt his stomach drop, and it almost made him feel sick.  
  
He _couldn't_ do this.  
  
Of all of the things that James had prepared himself for, he hadn't expected this. He hadn't thought about this. He'd been worried about pain management, he'd been worried about money, and time.  
  
This hadn't been something that James had paid any mind to.  
  
"Jim?" Qrow asked, quietly. "Jim, you're all pale, what's-"

James shook his head and actually let himself lean against the countertop so that he could bury his face in his hands. All of a sudden, James was having very serious second thoughts about this whole thing, but he was also in too far to back out at this point. 

The lines were already drawn out for him.  
  
Qrow was ready.  
  
James had _thought_ he'd been ready.  
  
So why wasn't he feeling that now?  
  
If he went ahead and got this tattoo done, would he even be able to go out afterwards? Would he just have two ugly arms instead of one now? Would he have any luck at making himself feel better?  
  
What if after this, James still couldn't bring himself to look down at his hands without the damned glove there?  
  
How much money, how much time, how much energy would James have to waste in the name of getting something fixed only for it all to fall apart?  
  
Qrow's voice was there again. "James," he sounded insistent and deeply concerned. "Talk to me, what's wrong?"  
  
James couldn't look up. He tried to open his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. A thousand more possibilities swarmed his head, and James just had to step away.  
  
Robotically, James put his hands up, and stepped away. He turned and left the store, and took off down the street before Qrow could catch up with him and ask him what was wrong.  
  
He didn't turn back.  
  
His phone would ring, but James wouldn't pick up.  
  
Qrow would run down the streets after him, but James didn't turn. No, instead he went for the parking lot, and didn't let himself look back at the thin artist following after him. The artist that had been so proud to show James his work.  
  
James had thought that he'd wanted this.  
  
Now, he wasn't so sure.  
  
He didn't let himself look back until he was in his car halfway out of the city of Vale with the music blaring so loudly that it hurt his ears.


	2. Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qrow was left behind, and he is very, very tired. The silent treatment kills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this wasn't originally supposed to be chapter two, but here we are. Qrow's point of view as he tries to navigate the hell-position that he's been placed in. 
> 
> The only other major note I have is that this fic was originally only going to be two chapters- it'll be four chapters long by the end of things. So, not really bad news. 
> 
> Enjoy!

Qrow must have sprinted two full blocks before he lost sight of James Ironwood.

His heart was racing- he didn’t know what was wrong, just that something had _changed_ and that James was _gone_.

Had he done something wrong?

Had he misstepped?

Had he done something to upset James?

Had his stencils been imperfect?

Or was it something that had gone wrong on James’ end?

Did he forget to do something or accidentally make the man uncomfortable?

Qrow didn’t know.

All that he did know was that he _should_ have been able to help James out, he _should_ have been able to help the man recover.

But he couldn’t and now instead of helping, he was standing here on a sidewalk watching as the cars passed by in hopes that he’d see James and be able to intercept him.

He could even run into traffic if he had to. Things didn’t get left off like this for no reason. Something was very, _very_ wrong and Qrow needed to figure out what it was quick or else he was going into serious trouble. He needed the paycheck, and he’d been sure that he was going to get a good pay from James, but now that the man was gone with no sign of coming back, Qrow wasn’t so sure about that anymore.

He pursed his lips and let his hands ball into fists at his sides. He was _angry_ , Qrow realized. He was very angry, but he couldn’t do anything about it except for run, or get into a fight, or scream maybe. Maybe he could stop at a liquor store on the way home and he’d be able to get something so that he could at the very least medicate himself and try to forget about this.

But damn, he needed the pay from these jobs. He needed to know that James was alright, he needed to know that he hadn’t somehow just sunk his own career by mistake.

Behind him, he could hear the sound of someone approaching him with even steps that were landing all too calmly. He looked back over his shoulder to see that Ozpin was standing there, wearing a loose fitting green sweater and watching him silently.

Of course.

Qrow frowned and sighed then turned to face his partner. Ozpin didn’t say anything to him, just let their eyes flick back to the street that Qrow had come down. Realizing what was being communicated to him, albeit quietly, Qrow hung his head as he began to walk. He roughly shoved his hands down into the depths of his pockets and did his best to try not to feel like he wasn’t just screwing everything up colossally right now.

“Are you going to be alright?” Ozpin asked, keeping their voice entirely too level to not be unsettling. “That was rather... drastic.”

Leave it to Ozpin to ask the question of the century, Qrow thought bitterly. He didn’t look over at his partner, he couldn’t bring himself to share his shame with anyone right now. A good artist never saw someone run out on them like that. A good artist didn’t end up like Qrow. A good artist got paid.

“I dunno.” Qrow rasped out, taking note of how dreary the world around him looked right now. He saw things that normally he’d go home and draw or try to make interests out of, but instead everything looked like it was printed in grayscale. Once in awhile he’d see a coin or a wad of abandoned gum in the gutter, and he’d just find himself thinking that he belonged there too.

What had he done so wrong?

At Qrow’s side, Ozpin hummed quietly, like they were doing their best to be supportive, if only in their own weird, weird way. It was almost unsettling, but Qrow didn’t mind it that much. He needed to know that things were going to be alright.

Silently, the two of them walked back to the shop, which Qrow was sure had been locked up when Ozpin had come after him. It was going to be a mess, Qrow realized as he turned onto a side street that was going to bring him to the shop, if at a bit slower rate than it would have taken to get there had he decided to take the normal path.

But Qrow couldn’t put himself through that. Not right now, at least. Not when he was boiling with so many feelings that it made his head spin. He didn’t want to have to walk back through the door to the store and see the work that he’d done for James sitting there waiting for him to do something with it when it looked like that was never really going to happen.

He’d put so many hours into making those pieces for James. So many days, so many sheets of paper and scrapped drawings, and it was all for nothing.

No, he definitely wasn’t bitter about what had happened. Not at all.

Ozpin stopped at the edge of the alley, and Qrow realized that they were probably about to question his choice to go down here alone. They were going to question why he was taking a pathway that wasn’t the usual, but Qrow didn’t care. He stopped next to a dumpster, and looked back at Ozpin over his shoulder.

“You can uh, go on without me.” Qrow muttered, just loud enough to ensure that Ozpin could hear him. Recognizing that he needed to be alone, they nodded, and turned, instead walking down their own path.

They’d meet at the shop-  the two of them always did.

Once Ozpin was out of sight, Qrow just let himself lean against the wall and buried his head in his hands. He didn’t want to go back to the shop and be reminded of everything that had happened. No, he just wanted to go home and do his best to banish all of the bad feelings that had decided to well up in him that day.

He was going to have to go back to the office eventually, Qrow reminded himself. He just wasn’t sure about whether or not he actually wanted to have to do that.

Qrow didn’t leave the alley. Not for a long while. He may have stood there for twenty or so minutes doing his absolute best to collect his thoughts, but things didn’t come together so easily. Instead of going back to the shop and getting his things so that he could go home for the night, Qrow just decided that what he really wanted to do was just wander the city and hope for some small beacon of hope.

Nothing came.

At eleven o’clock at night, Qrow went back to the shop.

Emerald Street Tattoos was empty. Apparently Ozpin had decided to go home when they realized that Qrow wasn’t going to be coming back anytime soon. Qrow sighed and reached for the lone key that he had before he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

He hated the shop when it was like this, quiet and lonely without any sign of life and the only lights only bounced off of the gears that were painted on the walls, courtesy of Ozpin. It was always eerie, and it tended to make Qrow wonder whether or not he’d accidentally stepped into another world.

No, Qrow knew better. This was the same place that he called his job, it was just late, and quiet.

On the counter, the drawings that were going to be James’ tattoo still sat, having gone completely undisturbed since James had run out. A heavy sigh escaped Qrow as he approached the stack of drawings and the large folder that he’d chosen to carry them in. He picked the first up, and recognized it quickly to be the piece that would have made up James’ elbow.

He turned it over in his hands, sighed, and set it down in the folder. He began to pick up the pieces of James’ arm, one by one, and returned them back to the folder in order so that he wouldn’t end up accidentally confusing himself in the future on the off chance that they were needed.

He was going to have to get back into contact with James, Qrow realized. He knew for a fact that he had the man’s number on file- that had been ensured during his first meeting with James, and it wasn’t like James had tended to skip answering Qrow’s calls.

Qrow couldn’t help but to wonder whether or not he’d perhaps gotten too close to James somehow, despite how infrequently the two were meeting. Despite their setting. Despite the reason for their meetings.

He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he?

The more that Qrow thought about it, he got the feeling that he had definitely misstepped at some point, but he definitely didn’t know where. Maybe, just maybe, if he was able to get James to talk to him, then he’d be able to find out whether or not he’d done something wrong or not.

Qrow stared down into the folder and shook his head as he slid it off of the counter in front of him. He stepped around the side of the counter and went to the door to his office which always had a habit of feeling like it wasn’t his office, really. It always felt like there was something that kept him from really identifying it as his.

And that was despite the fact that he was the one that chose all of the decorations of this office, and the fact that nobody really came into this office unless they were coming in alongside him.

Frustrated, Qrow set his folder down on his desk and grabbed his coat before walking outside so that he could leave. He’d already figured that it was going to be a bit too late for him to catch a bus that would take him back to his apartment, but Qrow wasn’t so sure that he minded that now.

He was going to have to make it home, but he didn’t know how he preferred to make that happen. The simplest solution would be to call a cab, but Qrow preferred to walk instead.

It wasn’t much of a choice after all, it seemed.

Qrow stepped outside of the store, locked the door behind him, and walked home silently.

 

* * *

 

Morning rolled around, and Qrow made a point of hitting his alarm clock every three minutes so that he didn’t have to hear its blaring reminders that Qrow did in fact have to go to work sometime.

Qrow had gotten home _much_ later than he would have liked, and only ended up being able to go to bed at around three in the morning. He was lucky to have been able to get in without waking anyone else up on the way in, but now that it was morning....

“Qrow!” A woman’s voice called through the door.

 _Goddamnit_.

“Get up!” The voice called through the door again. “I have to go soon!”

Qrow groaned loudly but forced himself upright. He felt gross, and it took him a short minute to realize that upon arriving home he hadn’t exactly bothered to change out of his dirtied clothes from the night before in favor of something that was a bit more comfortable. Or you know, clean.

He rolled out of bed and took a moment to get his feet under him before stepping to his bedroom door and pushing it open. On the other side, his two housemates were there, with Summer making toast while Taiyang hurried around the apartment in search of something that he probably couldn’t go to work without.

Summer’s eyes flashed over to Qrow and she put on a light smile. “Good morning, sleepyhead.”

Qrow didn’t say anything. Instead he just grunted at her, and continued on his way to the bathroom. As the door closed behind him, he could hear the sound of Summer’s voice again.

_“Rude.”_

Qrow knew that it didn’t mean anything. Even if it did, he was beyond caring..

Instead, he focused that morning’s efforts into making himself into something that resembled a presentable human being, which truly felt like a stretch at best. He never really tended to hit the mark quite right, but he supposed it was a good thing that he worked at a tattoo parlor as opposed to somewhere else. At least at Emerald City Tattoos, he looked like the norm and he fit in right.

He stared at his reflection in the mirror, and Qrow realized quickly that he wasn’t so sure about how much he liked the person that he saw in the reflection there. The face that stared back at him was tired, looking entirely too scraggly and messy to belong to anyone that had a normal, paying job. And Qrow tended to be paid pretty well, he just had a chronic habit of not caring too much about how he presented himself to the outside world.

The outside world could go fuck itself.

Rather than going ahead and making himself presentable in ways that would have been considered normal, like shaving or at the very least combing his hair (he liked it when it stuck up in weird ways, it had more personality than combed hair,) Qrow decided to splash some water on his face and just brush his teeth. The spearmint toothpaste that he used was cool, to the point where it almost hurt his mouth to use, but he didn’t care.

Once he figured he was mostly ready, Qrow stepped back out of the washroom, to see that Summer had Taiyang pressed against the counter, with her hands on his tie as she tried to get it into order the same way that she did every morning. It was almost cute to watch, but to Qrow it was also interesting.

Qrow liked knowing what people looked like. It was something that he’d figured out early on into his career as a tattoo artist. He liked being able to know what it looked like under people’s clothes. For instance, he knew for a fact that Taiyang had a very extensive tattoo of a dragon that wound around his entire body, and it was all so easily covered up by Taiyang’s clothing.

Most people didn’t know that. Qrow though? Qrow knew. He had a hand in putting that tattoo on Taiyang’s skin. He also knew that under her skirt, Summer had a tattoo of a lion on her upper thigh.

He did that one too.

Summer tugged on Taiyang’s tie and looked up, to see that Qrow was there, watching them quietly. Her silver eyes narrowed into slits, and Qrow almost wanted to take a step back but decided against it. Nah, right now, his main concern was just getting some coffee into his system so that he could at the very least pretend to function as a normal human being.

This was a theme of his mornings.

“What’s your problem?” Summer asked as she took a step away from the smiling Taiyang. She turned to face Qrow, putting on the angriest little pout that she could before waving a dainty hand. “There’s coffee waiting in the kitchen. I figured you would want some.” She said, almost cheerfully.

“Thanks Summer.” Qrow chuckled as he slipped past the pair and into the kitchen where he was able to just pour himself a mug of coffee. The mug that he picked was his, chipped as it was, but he loved it. He loved the way that there were little black birds painted on the side, all lovingly painted there by his sister once many years ago.

He didn’t even mind the way that something awful tended to pull at him every time that he thought about that fact.

Qrow sipped the coffee and pushed his hair back out of his face with one hand as he focused his eyes on the clock. It was almost eight in the morning, and he was going to have to be at the store in two hours at the most if he didn’t want to get into trouble with Ozpin. Though Ozpin was always quiet, Qrow never wanted to be on the receiving end of their wrath.

No.

Qrow had seen that far too many times for his liking. In cases that involved Ozpin’s potential anger, as cool and subdued as it tended to be, Qrow would always pass.

The realization soon crossed Qrow’s mind that he hadn’t managed to get much sleep that night. In fact, it looked like he'd only managed to get close to three hours of rest, which was never a good thing when your career was heavily involved in making permanent alterations to people’s bodies.

And Qrow was already not sure whether or not he was screwing things up at work or not because of how things had gone the day before with-

Qrow cut that thought off before it could go too far and make him want to add something to the mug of coffee. He sipped from the coffee again, and tried to just plan out what the rest of his morning was supposed to look like in his head instead of going ahead and letting himself worry about-

Dammit, there it was again.

He was going to have to face it at some point.

Qrow knew that.

It wasn’t going to go well.

Qrow knew that too. But that wasn’t what this was about, ultimately. Ultimately, Qrow was mostly just worried about the fact that he was going to have to go into work, and he was going to have to face his shame. It wasn’t a good feeling, for anyone involved.

He wondered what his runaway client was doing now. Whether he was sleeping or not, or whether he felt regret about the fact that he’d run off the way that he had. Qrow even dared to let himself wonder whether or not he would have a surprise visit from James later on in the day to try and patch things up, or at least give payment.

What a damn mess.

Qrow set his mug of coffee down next to him on the counter and pushed away from it. He was going to have to finish getting ready for the day ahead. New clothes, mostly.

He wound his way through the apartment until he was in his room again. When the door pushed open, Qrow couldn't help but to let his eyes scan over the environment that he called his home. It was a mess, and he was going to have to take the time eventually to clean things up, but that would be when he wanted to.

Qrow almost tripped on an abandoned shirt on his way over to the hamper that he put his clean clothes in. He rifled around in the white mesh box, and just pulled out the first things that his mind registered as being clothes. Shirt, pants, underwear. It was all he needed.

He took the few minutes to get dressed, and even took the time to let himself think about what sorts of things he had to do that day. He was sure that a big part of his day was going to be all about finishing up some pieces, and then contacting James.

Qrow figured that was going to be the first thing that he tried to do when he arrived at the store. Whether or not James would pick up the phone was a big question. The last time he'd called James for something, Qrow had been sure that he'd accidentally woken him.

With things the way they were now, Qrow wasn't so sure that was something that he actually wanted to risk doing.

Once again, he tried hard not to think about it. He was just going to have to take the commute to the store with Summer and Taiyang, and he was just going to have to hope that neither of them tried to breach the topic as to why he arrived home at such an early hour in the morning.

Fully dressed now, Qrow stepped out of his bedroom, pulling on a sweater the entire time before joining his two housemates. They both looked ready to go out and be productive members of society. Taiyang worked as a schoolteacher, and Summer worked at a small law practice.

Him though? He was the bum tattoo artist that lived with them because it kept him out of trouble.

Summer looked Qrow up and down for just a moment and smiled. "You ready to go?" She asked, adjusting her headband without looking at how she looked. "Because Tai and I have places to be."

"Yeah, I think I'm ready." Qrow answered. His voice came out a little too ragged, and it was the most obvious sign that he'd been out late. It was better than his hangover voice, but still. "You heading out?"

"I am once you two have your shoes on." Summer said. Taiyang was next to the door, sitting on the floor and tying his shoes. He looked up and flashed Qrow a quick smile before picking up one of Qrow's sneakers, which he tossed in Qrow's direction.

Qrow couldn't help but to shake his head when he reached down to pick up the shoe. He wasn't entirely too worried about getting it on immediately, or even tying the laces so that he didn't end up accidentally tripping later on.

Which was a much more common issue than Qrow liked to admit.

He slipped into his shoes, and then the three of them were out the door and on the way to the school so that Taiyang could be dropped off for the day, then the store, where Qrow got out.

Summer didn't leave immediately. Instead, she let herself sit in her parking space and rolled down the window so that she would be able to talk to Qrow. So instead of going into the store, Qrow stood there on the sidewalk with his hands buried deep in his pockets.

"You're going to be alright?" Summer asked, keeping her voice as even as possible. "I know you got in late-"

"Yeah." Qrow answered, deciding that it was best if he cut her off and let her think that nothing was wrong. "Just ended up caught up in work. Nothing big."

Summer hummed, an obvious sign that she didn't exactly believe Qrow about that. She picked her hands up off of the steering wheel and waved them in front of her, one of Summer's old tics for letting people know that the issue was dropped.

Qrow was usually grateful to see that motion.

She smiled gently, turned her head, and gave Qrow an encouraging nod. "I'll see you tonight then, alright?" She asked, quietly. "Try to be good."

"You know I won't."

Summer laughed, and that was it. She shook her head, and then waved Qrow away before driving off, leaving Qrow there outside of the shop. Once Summer was gone, Qrow turned around to see that the shop had already been opened up, which meant that Ozpin was probably already in.

He inhaled deeply and steeled himself before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

At the counter, Ozpin was there, looking over a book with a look of pure boredom on their face. They looked up at Qrow when they heard the door open, and didn't say anything.

Alright then.

So there were no new clients in that morning. That was probably a good thing, since Emerald City tended to do everything on an appointment only basis anyways.

Qrow slipped behind the counter and opened the door to his room, which was still undisturbed from the night before. Sitting on his desk, was the packet that held all of the work that he'd done for James so far.

He was going to have to call James.

He was probably going to have to work his way up to making that phone call. It was going to take a while, but he was going to have to do it.

Qrow pushed the thoughts off to the side and put the folder of work off to the side where he wasn't going to have to look at it. and then, he began to get ready for his day. He was going to have a lot of work to do, but he was alright with any and every distraction at this point in the day.

So he went through his schedule, and spent most of his morning with a young man who wanted to get a large set of wings in green on his back. It wasn't the most enthralling work, but Qrow didn't mind it. He got to talk, and focus, and it was all good.

That was, until the kid left and Qrow was left alone with his thoughts again.

It was almost eleven thirty, and the phone was taunting him.

Qrow inhaled deeply, found James' number, and dialed it.

He listened through the tone on the phone, and when the ringing was replaced with the sound of James' deep voice asking for a message, Qrow couldn't help but to leave one.

When he hanged up the phone, he tried hard not to let anything betray how upset he was by the fact that James didn't pick up. But he was going to have things to do during the rest of the day.

So Qrow threw himself into his work, and tried hard not to think about James.

 

* * *

 

The next week was a lot of the same. Every day, Qrow seemed to have to drift by on the same routine. Get up, go to work, build himself up to calling James, and then go through the rest of the day trying to adjust to the fact that he felt so damn rejected.

The worst part of it all was that it was obvious that James was probably checking his messages. Qrow could send James texts, and he'd get the "seen" notification, but never an answer. No matter how many times he tried to get ahold of James, there was never an answer.

James’ voicemail never registered as filled.

James never texted him back.

Qrow was being avoided, and that really hurt. He _shouldn't_ have been stuck like this, he shouldn't have been so badly affected by the fact that James had run. Worst of all, Qrow didn't know how he was supposed to go on from day to day. Talking to people around him didn't offer many solutions.

_"He's probably just afraid to come back."_

_"I'm sure he'll come around."_

_"Sometimes clients just drop you without warning, it's not a big deal."_

It was just making Qrow _miserable_. It got worse and worse every day that it went on, and Qrow found himself falling further and further down a hole that he couldn't quite climb out of.

The worst part was that there were days where he'd be at work, and then he'd hear the chime of the door opening. His heart would jump in his chest, and he'd have nothing that he could do but hope that he'd hear that deep voice again.

But no.

It never happened.

Qrow drank himself to sleep a lot of nights.

Unless things resolved properly, Qrow wasn't going to be able to get his life back to normal anytime soon. He needed the money from the job, and he needed desperately to know that he wasn't failing sideways at it.

He could keep hold of his other clients alright, but they weren't the ones that he needed approval from. Qrow needed to know that he hadn't accidentally sent James on a mental spiral.

Most clients weren't like James. They weren't scared and insecure like he was. Most clients knew what they wanted, and weren’t afraid of it all.

Qrow hadn't spent much time with the guy, but he spent more than enough time to learn that he didn't actually mind James' presence. It wasn't common for him to get attached to his clients in any real way.

But he'd gotten invested in James.

And every day, Qrow would work himself up to talking to the guy only for it all to end in the same unsatisfying way.

James never answered him.

After the second week, Qrow stopped feeling like he had to work himself up to call James because he knew that there was never going to be a case where James answered. He wasn't going to get paid. He wasn't going to hear from James again, or find out whether the guy was doing alright.

No, he'd been cut off completely.

And nothing short of an in-person meeting would be enough to fix things.

 

* * *

 

Almost a month into James' silence, there was a development. Qrow came to the store one morning to see that Ozpin was sitting at the counter as they always were, with a book in hand. Oblivious to the rest of the world.

Qrow opened the door, and a bell chimed over his head when he walked through the door.

Ozpin looked up at him, and stood up. They stepped behind the one cash register that belonged to the store and opened its lone drawer silently. Qrow cocked his head to one side to try and figure out what Ozpin was doing. He even opened his mouth to say something, but was only cut off by Ozpin holding out an immaculate white envelope in his direction.

“James Ironwood came in.” Ozpin said, their voice as steady as ever. “He asked me to make sure that this made it into your hands.”

Those words shot something awful through Qrow’s chest but he tried to push that feeling back. He reached out and took the envelope. On its front, his name was written in too-clean handwriting, and just running his fingertips over the other side of the envelope was enough to tell Qrow that James had sealed it.

He frowned, and tore the envelope open. Inside, there was no note from James, only a single sheet of paper that Qrow quickly recognized as a check.

So James had come in to pay for what he’d done, Qrow thought as he slipped a finger down into the envelope so that he could try to slide it out. The check came out, and Qrow straightened it out between his fingers as his eyes scanned over it in search of the sum paid.

Qrow felt a little bit guilty, in truth. He’d told James a few times that he would make sure to get an amount owed, and he’d never really gone ahead and done that. In theory, that might have been enough to make things a little bit less awkward, maybe James would have stuck around if he’d been given a proper price.

But Qrow couldn’t just give one, not without knowing how much ink he was going to have to use, or anything else like that. And so now, he was standing here in the middle of the shop with a check from James in his hand.

James had paid him a thousand dollars for the few days that he’d come in. He’d paid Qrow a thousand dollars, and all that Qrow could think about was the fact that James had overpaid. And it was all his fault.

Qrow slipped the check back into the envelope and looked up at Ozpin with a somewhat pained look on his face. Ozpin, stared at him, looking a little bit bored. Qrow wondered, for just a moment, whether or not he would have been able to find out how James seemed to be doing.

Whether or not James had shown up with a new tattoo on his left side.

Whether or not the man looked healthy.

But at the same time, it hardly seemed appropriate. And besides, Qrow was quite certain that Ozpin didn’t really care enough to pay attention to such things. Ozpin tended to exist in their own little world a lot of the time, not that Qrow minded that.

“Thanks.” Qrow finally said, though the word was incredibly bitter on his tongue when he said it. He didn’t know what he was really even thanking Ozpin for, aside from making sure that this made its way into Qrow’s hands. “I have to go get ready.”

“Of course.” Ozpin answered. “If you need me, you know what to do.”

Qrow just nodded and slipped behind the gap in the counters so that he could go to his room. He needed a few minutes to himself, Qrow realized pretty quickly. He needed to take the time to think about what this payment meant for him. In theory, he could have taken the money and ran, regardless of the situation, but there was a small part of Qrow that felt really bad about doing that.

He sat down at his desk and pulled out the drawer where he kept his laptop. With one motion, Qrow opened it up and turned it on. He was going to have a few minutes before he would be able to do anything, but Qrow wasn’t so sure that he minded that so much.

All he knew was that once it was booted, he was going to have to start doing the math to find out how badly he’d been overpaid. After that, he was going to have to actually make the decision on whether or not he should contact James again and try to get the monetary issue figured out.

And while Qrow wanted to think that James would answer the phone or at least contact him back if he found out that he’d overpaid, he partially doubted that James would do anything. These days, he’d learned to expect inaction from the other man because it seemed that there was no other way that James was going to go about things when it came to him.

With his computer booted up, Qrow began to go through the inventory of every single thing that he’d done or requested from James, since he knew that he had gotten the guy to buy him fries that one time. It wasn’t going to change the balance that much, but in the end, Qrow didn’t want to leave anything out.

In the end, it ended up being a price difference of about four hundred dollars. James had given him a thousand, but it looked like the guy only owed about six hundred.

And that wasn’t even considering the fact that Qrow had been planning to give James a discount, even if it was a little on the small side. Nowadays, the discount wasn’t so much in the picture, but if something were to happen, he would consider applying it.

But for that to happen, James would have to walk through the front doors of Emerald City Tattoos, probably make a loud public appearance (Qrow wondered whether James was even capable of being loud or not,) and also go ahead and make an apology for the world to see. Qrow knew that was asking for too much, and so James wouldn’t be likely to get any sort of discount out of Qrow these days.

At 11:23 that morning, Qrow called James’ phone, and to no surprise at all, nobody answered and Qrow rang straight through to voicemail.

Just as expected.

Qrow would have to call back the next day, he supposed. It wasn’t likely to be enough to get James to answer him, but Qrow figured that the best and only thing he could really do in this situation was try to get James’ attention.

Fat chance of that happening.

 

* * *

 

Another two weeks passed.

Another two weeks worth of text messages and voicemails went completely ignored.

Qrow didn’t know why he was still trying.

He hadn’t gone ahead and cashed James’ check- he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He figured that James had noticed his inaction at this point, but he didn’t want to think about James too much.

Shitty clients came and went. James didn’t matter, and Qrow was all too willing at this point to just forget that they guy had ever existed.

As it turned out, the universe had different plans for him. Forgetting about James wasn't going to be so easily. And the universe decided that it had a very specific way that it wanted to make that fact known.  
  
As it turned out, Qrow ended up in Atlas for a few days. He’d heard about a tattooing convention that he wanted to go out and take part in. It wasn't a very long trip to get there, and he was sure that it was going to be a good time.  
  
It was also a chance for Qrow to get some work in. He wasn't missing this.  
  
So he went to Atlas.

He was going to be staying a few nights at a motel that he _hoped_ didn’t have bugs, then he was going to take his time around the city. And he was mostly able to do just that. He was able to go to the convention, walk around the city and see what it was like, and then come night he could turn in and rest.  
  
It was on the second night that things changed a little bit for Qrow. He got back to his room, and was absolutely _starving_. It wasn't comfortable, but there weren't many places right next to the motel that he'd be able to get something to eat.  
  
Disgruntled, Qrow left the motel, shoved his hands down into the depths of his pockets, and began the walk down to the nearest corner store. It was probably going to be several minutes for him to get there, but he didn't mind the walk so much. He'd gotten into the city because Taiyang hadn't minded taking a quick road trip with him, but that also meant that Qrow was left without a car or anything.  
  
It wasn't a big deal, but it _was_ pretty annoying.  
  
He found a small store and pushed the door open. At the counter, a man was making some sort of purchase, and Qrow did his best to pay it no mind. He made a beeline for the little racks that held all of the hot food. He began to turn his attention onto the rotating rack of pizza.  
  
Qrow was about to reach for a slice of pepperoni pizza when he heard a man's voice on the other side of the store, which rang entirely too familiar to Qrow's ears. The voice was deep, a comforting baritone that he'd heard a few times over.  
  
_James._  
  
James was _there_. Well, that made sense, Qrow supposed. James' phone number was an Atlas number rather than a Vale one, but Qrow really hadn't expected that he was going to end up running into James.  
  
There was no way that this was anything other than some sort of cruel cosmic joke that was being played on him.  Of all the people he could run into, even if he didn't end up making any sort of direct contact with him, why did he have to end up in the same place as James?  
  
Why?  
  
Why him?  
  
Qrow slowed his motions and tried to make himself as unnoticeable as possible so that he wouldn't end up accidentally making contact with James. Because as of now, if James so much as _looked_ at him the wrong way, Qrow was pretty sure he would snap. There was something in his head that was telling him to go ahead and call James' phone to see whether or not the guy would answer, but Qrow tried hard to resist it.  
  
Doing that would be a death sentence.  
  
Qrow focused his eyes onto James through the glass pane of the pizza display. He watched the way that the man moved. He was still terribly stiff in his motions, but Qrow didn't pay that too much mind. That was the way that James had always been when it came to how he moved around. When he saw James' hands enter his view, the first thing that Qrow noticed was the fact that James was still wearing the lone glove and unmarked left hand.  
  
At least James hadn't gone ahead and gotten someone _else_ to do his hand, Qrow thought.  
  
It was almost a relief being able to see James like this. The guy looked like he was smiling, though Qrow suspected that he was probably putting on some sort of show so that people didn't worry about him too much. But at the very least, he could rest easy with the knowledge that James hadn't been seeing any other artists behind his back.  
  
Which was a small relief. Not a very big one, since there was still a lot that was lingering over Qrow's head that was making it hard for him to get past all of this. He wanted to feel like he was actually as good of an artist as he thought, but that was so hard.  
  
Even surrounded by his peers he couldn't convince himself that he was doing things right.  
  
James finished paying for whatever he was getting, which looked like a cup of coffee, and Qrow just glued his eyes to the man's back as he made his way out of the store. The glass door swung closed behind James and that was all that Qrow really needed to snap him back to reality.  
  
All of a sudden he wasn't feeling all that hungry.  
  
He frowned and got his pizza, which he closed into a triangle shaped box before paying for it and making his trip back to his motel. On the way out, he passed by James, filling his car with gas. Qrow kept his head down, and he could have sworn that he heard James stumble behind him.  
  
He didn't pay it any deep level of attention.  
  
If James knew he was there now, that was on him.

Qrow wasn't going to pay James any mind. Instead of talking to the guy, he was going to orchestrate his exit to be as clean as possible so that James wouldn't dare try to follow after him. Besides, the fact that James was pumping gas meant that Qrow had a few minutes head start before he had to worry about the guy.  
  
On the way past, Qrow made a point not to look at James, just to get a good look at the guy's car so that he knew what he was supposed to look out for in case of James following after him.  
  
No worries.  
  
James didn't come after him.  
  
Qrow left another voicemail in the morning at the same time as he always did, just to rub it in.  
  
James never answered it.

 

* * *

 

It had been two months since James had entered Qrow's life and disappeared just as quickly.  
  
Even still, things were hard.  
  
The check that James had delivered to the store continued to go uncashed.  
  
James still hadn't done anything to answer his phone, still hadn't made even the _slightest_ attempt at making contact with Qrow.  
  
Qrow was tired. He was beyond exhausted by the entire situation.  
  
Every time that he was almost free from James' grip, Qrow found himself falling back into it, and he was angry and frustrated. All that he wanted at this point was to be able to relax again, rather than being stuck thinking about James.  
  
Since he'd been in Atlas for the convention, once in awhile he'd think he saw James. Just brief glimpses, never long enough for Qrow to be able to confirm whether or not it was him for sure. Most of the time, Qrow just didn't want to know.  
  
As of that day, it was exactly two months since Qrow had last heard from or seen James. It was nearing eleven- he was going to have to give James his daily phone call pretty soon, and Qrow wasn't looking forward to it at all.  
  
It was more of a chore at this point than anything else. However, it had also become part of Qrow's daily routine. He had the feeling that if he were to cut this part of his day, he would be left floundering from the break in schedule.  
  
Qrow was leaned over a new arm piece that he was putting together for someone, trying to work through some of the small details on it. There were small birds, and snakes, and all sorts of animals that he was used to working on. He was in the process of adding a small border at the lower left corner when he heard the sound of the door to his room opening.  
  
He picked his head up, and looked over, to see that it was Ozpin standing there, with a bag of something in their hand. Qrow cocked his head at his coworker and focused his attention in on the bag that was in Ozpin's hand.  
  
Ozpin took that as an invitation to enter the room, and stepped in, closing the door behind them before going over to Qrow's desk where they set down the paper bag.  
  
"I wanted to check in on you." Ozpin said, quite plainly. They took a seat on the bed that Qrow typically seated his clients on. Qrow turned in his seat and looked up at Ozpin, like they would explain their presence there in his office, despite the fact that Qrow knew _that_ was rather unlikely.  
  
"Why?" Qrow asked. He reached out for the paper bag and unrolled the top. When he looked in, there was a sandwich, and a bottle of beer that he was going to have to work hard to keep from drinking while he was still at work. His brow furrowed, and he peered over in Ozpin's direction. Ozpin didn't say anything, just gestured to the contents of the bag as Qrow pulled them out.  
  
Ozpin sighed. "You've been out of sorts lately, and I've been worried, Qrow." They didn't move from their seat, and only folded one leg over the other before leaning back in their seat a little bit. "Ever since that client left you, you have been.... off."  
  
Qrow frowned. He didn't even bother to go ahead and unwrap the sandwich that Ozpin had brought him. He had the feeling that he was going to be losing his appetite pretty soon. "I was just worried, Oz. I thought I was messing up at my job and he hasn't really given me an answer about what I did wrong."  
  
"Qrow, sometimes you didn’t do anything wrong." Ozpin said, watching him the entire time without fail. It was almost a little bit disconcerting, and very uncomfortable to have Ozpin's eyes on him, but Qrow tried hard not to pay too much attention. It wasn't a good idea to let them get into his head too easily.  
  
It was quiet. Qrow sighed and picked up what he was working on before he stored it away in a folder so that he couldn't accidentally get anything onto it. It was for the best that didn't happen. He liked his business to be kept in line.  
  
He hummed and reached for the bottle of beer. He brought it down to his stomach and wrapped part of his shirt around the cap before he began to twist it off. The bottle opened, and he could hear the sound of carbon dioxide escaping the bottle as he waited. It was a satisfying sound.  
  
Qrow brought the bottle to his lips and sipped from it. "I just thought that things were going so well with him." He said, quietly. "He seemed like a good guy, and I thought that I had him on the way to something really good."  
  
"Sometimes they run, Qrow." Ozpin said, plainly. "And you have to be willing to accept that fact. So James ran. Why are you still stuck on him?"  
  
That was just the million dollar question, wasn't it?

Qrow was sure that if he had an actual answer for it, he would have been able to go ahead and give Ozpin an answer that would be enough to explain away how he had gotten to be this way. So nervous and almost obsessive over the best client he never had.

He shook his head, and found himself reaching up to his head so that he could push his black hair out of his face in a fashion that was almost violent. Qrow made a point not to make direct eye contact with Ozpin, instead deciding to focus his gaze on the sandwich that was sitting at his side because at least a sandwich couldn't make him feel like he was a complete mess.

Qrow searched his soul, his mind, his heart. Almost endlessly, he searched, for any sort of answer. When he finally came to one, all he could manage to do was drop his hand down to his side and sigh heavily. No tension left him, and it didn't make him feel any better, but at least Qrow had an answer as to why he was so stuck on Qrow.

"I don't know." He finally whispered.

Okay. So maybe he didn't know why he was still stuck on James despite the fact that the two of them had last seen each other in a reasonable context. If he had an answer, he wouldn't have been stuck feeling like this. Qrow stood up and looked down over at his sandwich like there was going to be some sort of answer that would be enough to somehow unlock the secrets of the universe for him and make him feel even slightly more secure.

Ozpin didn't say anything to him. They just kept their hazel eyes glued on him from behind those too-small glasses that Ozpin liked to wear. Qrow couldn't help but to feel like he was being judged the entire time, but there was also a part of him that wasn't entirely sure that he cared.

This didn't matter, did it? Did anything really matter?

Qrow couldn't find an answer to that question. It seemed like there really wasn't one, and that was the worst part.

Even now, two months after he'd last had James Ironwood sitting in his office, on the table where Ozpin was seated now, Qrow couldn't separate himself from how he was feeling. Nothing was making him feel better about the runaway client, and Qrow had the strong feeling that nothing ever really would be able to do that.

Maybe he was just doomed to suffer like this.

"You know this is unhealthy, don't you?" Ozpin asked, keeping their voice too level as they continued their stare-down of Qrow.

Qrow's mind raced with almost a million things that he could have said. Things that he wanted to snap, and snarl, and say purely out of anger because if he said them then at least he could maybe feel alive for a few minutes. Alive without having to wrap himself up in bottles or make himself almost numb with hate.

He couldn't think of any.

So instead of saying anything to Ozpin, Qrow stalked over to the other side of his room, where he knew his supplies would be sitting and waiting to be used. He reached up and picked up the tattooing gun that was sitting on one of the small shelves, and turned it over in his hands.

He'd been looking forward to tattooing James.

He was never going to tattoo James.

He never should have gotten invested.

Qrow knew all of these things. Knowing those things didn't make it any better. He looked up at the clock, to see that it was almost time for him to make his daily call to James again. Qrow sighed heavily and set the tattooing gun back down so that he didn't have to worry about it so much before he walked over to where his phone was sitting, plugged into the wall.

He stared down at it, and let his eyes over to Ozpin over his shoulder. Qrow picked the phone up and found himself gripping it only a little tighter than was strictly necessary, then finally spoke up, his eyes focused in on Ozpin the entire time. "Could you excuse me?"

Ozpin was quiet, but they resigned themself to Qrow's request. Qrow turned his head so that he could look down at his phone instead of focusing on Ozpin's presence.

Over his shoulder, he could hear the sound of them slipping off of the table and walking quietly out of the room. He only was able to relax when he heard the door to his office close because that meant that Qrow was alone to carry out his work. He stared down at the phone, and went to his list of contacts.

He scrolled through the number of text messages there until he found James' name. If he wanted to, Qrow knew that he could go ahead and click it and read through two months worth of identical text messages until he inevitably ran out of them and found himself in the wasteland that was his and James' few messages before the job.

All that was there that could even denote them as anything other than former client and a guy who, now that Qrow thought about it, probably came off as a stalker or something similar, was a text message where Qrow had gone ahead and asked James to get him some fries.

James hadn't responded to a single message since then, but every single message that Qrow had sent James' way had that little bubble that denoted that they'd been seen at the very least. It was annoying, knowing that James was seeing his messages and was just ignoring them.

Qrow actually would have preferred it if James had just blocked his number outright instead of continuing to carry on like this.

He pushed the thought back, and dialed James' number.

11:23.

Voicemail.

 

* * *

 

Qrow continued to find no relief as things rolled into the third month in a row without contact. He was at the point where he would have gone back in time to reverse things if he was given the chance, though Qrow knew fully well how foolish such things were to hope for.

Time travel wasn't real, it was only in movies.

And based on what he saw in movies, he knew that it could only end poorly. He'd end up accidentally starting World War Three, or maybe he'd trigger a nuclear apocalypse, or maybe he'd accidentally trigger another bad movie reboot that never should have been allowed.

Yeah.

Time travel was really, _really_ bad.

Qrow wouldn't have been thinking about this if not for the fact that he'd walked into the store again, to see that Ozpin was changing some of the decor- namely, Ozpin had decided to go ahead and add a clock motif instead of just the gears that had been their staple for so long.

Time.

Time was the key, Qrow supposed.

Turning it back couldn't fix things, but progressing forward and letting it pass could help to ease his pains and frustrations away from him. Not ideal, but it was something. He didn't say much to Ozpin- mostly just nodded at them on the way to his office. They gave him a quick acknowledgement in return, and Qrow stepped into his office.

Another reason that time was on his mind- he was running only a little bit late to the office that day. Not too bad, but it was later than he would have liked. The one saving grace in the whole thing was that he didn't have anyone booked for that morning. If he did, then that would have been an issue all its own.

But his morning was free, aside from that damned daily phone call and text message.

Qrow figured he could have skipped it. He could have skipped it, and let James move on with his life and everything would have been fine, but there were still issues that needed to be attended to. To Qrow, the most important of these things happened to focus on the fact that he still had a thousand dollar check stored away that he was still yet to cash because his conscience wouldn't let him.

Damn conscience. Who ever needed morals anyways?

He scowled as he stepped into the office. Sitting on Qrow's desk there was a cup of coffee, just waiting for someone to drink it. Qrow looked around, to see that there wasn't any note on the desk that had been left behind. If anything, it just meant that Ozpin probably had decided to get him something on the way in to work.

Either that or they wanted to just drain the remaining balance on a gift card- Ozpin had a habit of doing things like that because carrying a card was apparently a pain. Qrow reached down and touched the side of the cup of coffee- cold.

How late was he anyways?

Qrow shook it from his mind and seated himself at the desk. He leaned back in his chair and looked it over, trying to go over what his to do list for that day would inevitably look like. He was going to have to make his phone call, and then he was pretty sure that he had to sort some inks or something..

Routine stuff, nothing big.

He let his eyes slip shut and slumped as far down into his seat as he could go. There was a large part of Qrow that really, really didn't want to be in at the store that day. He could have stayed home and slept in, and maybe gone to town on the cookies that Summer had made the night before because she wasn't feeling well. That would have been better than work, but since he was the one "nonprofessional" in his home he couldn't really justify that.

Not that being a nonprofessional meant shit all about anything.

It just meant that he got paid less.

And he was licensed, besides.

In the distance, Qrow managed to make out the sounds of cars passing by the store. Honking, shouting, something that sounded like a light altercation between a driver and a pedestrian who'd probably decided to use the crosswalk at the right time.

Qrow had to get to work. He had to pull himself together, sit up, and get to work. He knew that.

He just really, really didn't want to go ahead and make that happen. He was tired, exhausted. He was going to be able to do his job well enough, it was just that he wasn't really feeling the patience that he needed to be able to sit at a desk all day and make things happen.

Slowly, Qrow peeled his eyes open and stared at the small clock that was sitting on his desk. It was almost eleven thirty, which meant that it was about time for him to make the call to James, cross his fingers, and hope for some sort of miracle that would validate three month's worth of attempts to get ahold of the guy.

Normally he didn't get hung up like this, and it was pissing him off that he continued to be unable to wrap his head around things.

He shook the thought and reached out for the phone. At the very least, he could once again get this out of the way so that he could at the very least stop having to worry about James. Once it was out of the way he didn't usually end up thinking about James at all.

Which may have been his one saving grace in the whole thing.

Qrow leaned forward in his seat and pulled out his phone. He opened it up, flipped past a message from Taiyang that Qrow was willing to bet was some sort of outdated meme, and then went to the list of his frequently called contacts.

James really shouldn't have been at the top of that list, Qrow recognized. But at the same time, he was in a little deeper than he would have liked on this thing and he was honestly at a point where he was a little bit afraid to turn back. He couldn't be seen as the weak one in this mess.

That was James' job.

He was the one that ran, after all.

Qrow raised the phone to his ear, and listened for the dial tone. The phone began to ring, and Qrow found himself counting through every ring.

One.

Nothing.

Normal.

Two.

Nothing.

Normal.

He ran through this, three more times. James didn't pick up, and so Qrow went through to voicemail. Qrow let out a heavy sigh when he heard James' voice appear, just the same short voicemail message that he always had for people to answer to.

Qrow let his eyes slip shut for just a moment as he listened to James' voice. It was distorted by the phone, by the electricity. In person, James always sounded better. Comforting, even. Not like this.

There was a beep, and then it was Qrow's turn to speak.

He found himself sighing heavily into the phone to signify his exhaustion.

Finally, Qrow began to speak. He didn't even make an effort to hide how tired he was of the whole thing. Qrow found himself staring down at his desk, and then put himself right onto autopilot.

"Hey, James." Qrow began, gripping his phone tightly and leaning back in his seat just a little bit. "It's Qrow. Again. Just calling to let you know that I need you to come in. If you need me, you know how to call me back."

And that was it. Qrow hung up the phone and went to his messages, to send James the same text message that he always did in the hopes that he might be able to catch the guy's attention that way. At this point he wasn't really banking on anything working to capture James' attention for more than just long enough to see the "seen" bubble slow up, but Qrow didn't mind.

He typed out the same message that he always did, and he kept it along the same lines as the phone call. However, there was a moment just before he hit send where Qrow couldn't help but to hesitate. He was probably going about things all wrong, he was probably just making himself seem like a massive nuisance as opposed to just getting into contact with James.

Qrow couldn't help but wonder whether or not maybe he needed to make a more personal form of outreach to James. He stared down at the phone, and he waited. Once the seen bubble appeared, that was when Qrow knew it was time to make his move.

He quickly tapped out a follow-up question to James. It was simple, three words. All that he needed.

 

> _Are you okay?_

The seen button appeared immediately.

To Qrow's surprise, the small ellipses in a bubble showed up to signify that James was actually beginning to type a response to him. He felt his breath catch in his throat, and his heart began to beat against his chest so hard that it was actually uncomfortable.

He'd actually managed to get James to consider responding to him.

Qrow wasn't sure whether that could actually be chalked up as a victory or not. If it was just a question of whether or not James gave a shit, then that would be one thing. But he'd gone ahead and asked whether James was alright or not.

The realization dawned on Qrow that it was more than entirely likely that James probably needed someone to talk to about how things were. Qrow had gotten a bit of that vibe when he'd first seen James, and he wasn't at all surprised to know that James still was probably in that sort of position.

He must have watched that bubble as it appeared and then disappeared a number of times over as James would begin his attempts at responses and stop them, only to restart again.

Qrow may have watched it for nearly fifteen minutes before finally, the little bubble disappeared for good.

His heart sank back down into his chest again at the realization that he hadn't been able to make his way through things. Qrow sighed heavily, and slammed his phone down onto the desktop a little bit harder than he should have.

But this, this was a breaking point for Qrow. He'd been going through this sort of _bullshit_ for three months, and now that it had actually looked like he was making headway, Qrow was absolutely furious to know that James had once again, decided to cut him off like some sort of coward.

Qrow forced himself upright. His patience for the day had almost all but completely run out just then and there. He already didn't really want to have to deal with clients at all, and he already wasn't exactly in a mood where sticking around the store all day was strictly a good idea.

Something in him just finally snapped like a singular tension wire.

On the way out of his office, Qrow grabbed his coat off of the hook where he'd hung it and began on the way out. He pulled the jacket on roughly as he left the store, just growling a "I'll be back later" at Ozpin on the way out so that he didn't have to worry about things.

He stepped out of the store, shoved his hands down as far down into his pockets as they could go, and slumped his back as his entire body began to just betray exactly how he was feeling. Qrow was all anger and hatred, and he needed to get it out of his system right then and there if he wanted to be able to make it through the rest of the day without drinking to drown his emotions out or at the very least tracking down the first person that looked like James and decking them.

He didn't know where he was going to go. Hell, he wasn't so sure that he even needed somewhere to go. All that Qrow knew was that he was more than just a little bit angry and that he didn't have anywhere the he could go to get rid of that feeling.

Of all of the things that could have possibly happened in Qrow's life, why did he have to get caught up in this sort of bullshit? What gods had he angered, what curses had he become a victim to? What had he done to deserve any of this?

Qrow crossed traffic, and did his best to ignore the way that people yelled at him as he walked through it. He didn't care to check that it was time to walk or not, and Qrow didn't want to wait for it.

If someone hit them with his car, he could make them pay his rent. That would be great.

There was a very small part of Qrow that was trying to tell him that what he was doing and thinking was wrong. His train of thought was wrong, it was dangerous, but Qrow was so far beyond caring that he wasn't sure that he would have been able to care even if something happened to him.

He walked away from the downtown area. Maybe just going to the park so that he wouldn't have to thing would be a good idea. He could go there, and sit by the flowers and some statues and try to calm himself down that way.

It was a long shot, but Qrow was willing to try it.

He stalked from street to street until reached the part of the road that touched against a large green carpet of grass. He stepped down into onto it and made a beeline across the park so that he could sit under the gazebo and stare up at its ceiling because at least that way he didn't run the risk of being caught in the sun all day.

He sunburned easily. When he was already in a bad mood, a sunburn was the last thing that he wanted to have to deal with.

Qrow laid there and let his eyes close. He tried to focus on anything that wasn't work, that wasn't James. The sound of the birds singing- sparrows, probably, if Qrow was guessing correctly. The soft feeling of the wind rustling his hair as it blew by. The scent of flowers wafting through the air. The occasional buzz of a bee's wings.

At some point, Qrow managed to nap for a little while, only to be woken back up by the sound of a dog's loud barking. A quiet groan escaped him as he sat up. He rubbed at the side of his head, and wondered how badly his hair had fallen out of place in the course of his nap.

He probably looked like he was homeless.

Qrow wasn't so sure that he cared. What he did care about, however, was the fact that his back felt a little stiff as a result of lying on the wooden floor of the gazebo.

He forced himself upright and wondered what time it was. Qrow's first reaction was to check his pockets for his phone so that he could find out, but didn't find it. He frowned, and sighed.

He began the walk back to the shop.

Qrow managed not to think about anything for the entire time until he got back to the shop, where Ozpin was waiting at the front desk as always.

They didn't say anything to Qrow.

Qrow was glad for that fact.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Qrow got up for work as he always did. He had to go back into the store, though he was pretty sure that he didn't have anyone coming in that day to see him. That wasn't a big deal, though, Qrow thought.

He was glad to have a slower paced day instead of being caught up in a thousand things all at once. Qrow was about halfway through getting dressed when he realized that he wanted to have a burrito that day.

Badly. Desperately.

He wanted a burrito that was at least the size of his head. Only a burrito the size of his head would act as a suitable distraction from everything that was going on around him.

He wasn't going to be able to just go out and do that, but Qrow was pretty sure that he was going to have time to go out for a meal later on.

Qrow stepped out into the main room of the apartment, where Taiyang was looking a lot more relaxed than usual. If Qrow was willing to guess, it was probably a matter of there being some sort of special event at the school where Taiyang worked.

Taiyang, looked over in his direction and shot Qrow a wide smile. He opened his mouth to ask him something, but immediately ended up just tilting his head to the side in a way that made his blond hair sway.

Then finally.

"You're in a good mood?"

"I'm having a burrito for lunch." Qrow announced, leaning against a counter next to Taiyang. "It's going to be the size of a baby, at least."

Taiyang raised an eyebrow, and he looked like he was ready to ask him a question, but was only cut off by Summer's voice. "Are you two ready to go?" She asked as she stepped in, clad in a grey pants suit.

Taiyang let out a low sigh, and smiled. "Yeah, I'm ready." He looked over at Qrow. "And since birdbrain's talking about burritos-"

Qrow shot Taiyang a glare and pushed off of the counter. He reached down and tugged the hem of his t-shirt down so that it went over his belt instead of riding up. "Yeah, I'm ready." Qrow said.

He began on the way across the room, and shoved his hands down deep into his pockets. Once he got to the door, he just stepped into his shoes, not particularly caring how they bent under his weight before he stepped out of the room.

The three of them took their walk down to the parking lot, and soon departed. Qrow took the time in the car so that he could fix his shoes. During the drive, the three of them ended up talking about movie plans- apparently there was something that Summer and Taiyang wanted to see and they wanted him to come along with them.

Qrow was glad for the invitation.

Taiyang was dropped off, and then Qrow was. He stopped just outside of the door and looked back over his shoulder to see that Summer was waiting.

"What's up?" Qrow asked, tilting his head to the side just a little bit. "Something wrong?"

"I just want to be sure you're okay." Summer said, sweetly. "Be a good boy, Qrow. Don't come home with anything new."

"No promises." Qrow laughed as he reached out for the door. Still locked- that was interesting. He reached into his pocket so that he could get his keys and unlocked the door before stepping in.

Once he was inside, Summer left.

He didn't pay her too much mind, and he didn't pay the fact that Ozpin was missing too much attention either. If he had a day at the store alone, Qrow was more than happy to take that. He liked getting to spend his days there when it was all quiet.

Even if that did mean that he was going to be alone at the shop for most of the day. He didn't mind that so much.

Besides, it meant that when he finally did go out to get his lunch, it meant that he was going to be able to enjoy his burrito in some amount of peace.

He seated himself behind the counter at the front instead of going back into his office. He wasn't going to have much to do that day, but the least he could do was sit in the front and pretend that he was actually doing something over the course of the day.

So for the most of the morning, Qrow was able to just sit around and browse the internet. He'd book people once in awhile when they came in looking for appointments. There were a few teenagers coming in asking about things, and Qrow had to turn more away than he would have liked purely on grounds of age alone.

It wasn't great, but it was important.

The day rolled on. He made his phone call to James at 11:23 as he always did, but today he decided to forego making the text message, if for no reason other than the fact that it gave him a chance to avoid getting angry in the same way that he had the day before.

And then when it was noon, Qrow got up because it was time for him to go get his lunch. He checked over the store, to make sure that everything was in order. Once he was satisfied, Qrow began the walk down towards the mini mall where he was sure that he was going to be able to get his lunch. He just hoped that the line there wouldn't be too long.

He almost didn't notice the sight of a car that Qrow was almost certain he'd seen before driving past him.

Qrow did his absolute best to pay it no attention. He stepped into the mall and began to weave through it. He was pretty sure that he was going to have some time before he had to worry about getting back to the store. If anything, it meant that for at least a little bit, Qrow was free to just enjoy himself around the mall and explore the small shops.

So Qrow did, at least for a little while. He didn't end up buying anything, if for no reason other than he probably couldn't afford anything more than his lunch that day, and Qrow was intending to spend a lot of money on that lunch, whether his wallet liked it or not. He may have searched between the shops for a little over half an hour before he finally made his way over to the food court so that he could purchase the infant-sized burrito that would likely make up his next three meals.

He was standing in line for maybe three or four minutes before it was finally his turn to order, and that took a few moments. Qrow didn’t mind that though, despite the fact that there was some small part of him that felt bad for the poor bastards stuck in the line behind them.

He really hoped that none of them were running late for meetings or anything like that, because they had quite a wait ahead of them.

Qrow ended up stepping off to the side so that he didn’t have to worry about being in anyone’s way. He decided that it was best for him to focus his gaze up onto the board that listed every ingredient that they carried. Qrow had ordered all of them, with some as double orders.

He was going to be king of the burritos.

Qrow waited patiently until his food was ready, and stepped forward in the line to grab his meal. He stepped back, with the bagged burrito in one hand, and froze when he turned so that he could make the walk back to the store.

Standing there, looking mildly terrified, was James Ironwood.

Something in Qrow snapped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


	3. Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solutions can be found, with a little bit of work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, I've taken a few creative liberties with certain things, but I'm also at a point where I don't exactly care because if James is able to be half-metal, there's surely some sort of weird sealant in this universe that allows for tattoo ink to be applied above the skin and last for a week or two. 
> 
> Comments are love!

Every day, at exactly 11:23 in the morning, James' cell phone would ring, and he would hit the decline button before the caller ID could show.  
  
This was James’ routine for over three months. For some reason, even despite the fact that James had walked out on Qrow that day, Qrow had kept on calling James like maybe, just _maybe_ , James would be able to pick up, and things would be able to be fixed.  
  
Qrow was either a very dumb man, or he was hell bent on making sure that he eventually got to finish this job.

James didn’t want to know which.

And James didn't know what the truth of the matter was, not really. He’d always made a point to delete the voicemails before he let himself get too tempted to listen to them because he wasn't sure that he wanted to know what Qrow wanted.  
  
He'd made sure that Qrow got paid, and that was the only thing that James felt that he'd actually needed to do.

And even still, Qrow continued to call him.  
  
Once in a while, James would go out with Glynda so that she had someone to talk to during her lunch, and she'd ask him about the tattoo. Whether it had been done or not, whether or not James meant to go through with it, all sorts of questions along those lines.  
  
James never had an answer for her.  
  
Admitting cowardice to anyone was incredibly difficult. Admitting it to Glynda was even harder.  
  
Alexandria would ask James too, but he was usually able to actually explain himself. Usually he'd be able to actually tell her that he just didn't think it would have worked out.

In the end, the only one that knew that James had run, was Qrow.  
  
And Qrow _wouldn't stop calling him_ .  
  
Once in a while, James would _actually_ allow himself to think about the whole thing. Things hadn't changed for him since he'd walked out of Emerald City Tattoos- not really. He still couldn't look down at himself when he got dressed, and he was still yet to build up the confidence to let someone else see him with the arm exposed.  
  
He knew, deep down, that he really shouldn't have walked out of the shop the way that he did. He really shouldn't have gone ahead and randomly dropped a thousand dollar check off with Ozpin and the instructions to give it to Qrow.

He also really shouldn't have wasted Qrow's time, but now it was far too late for him to go back and fix things. He'd left behind a complete mess, dug his grave, and now it was his time to lay in it.  
  
So every day, when Qrow called him at precisely 11:23 in the morning, James would just continue to ignore the calls in favor of going about his day. He didn't want the extra thing to weigh him down, and when the times came where he had to run into Vale he always made a point to avoid Emerald Street Tattoos just in case he can into Qrow.  
  
It figured that eventually he'd get called into downtown Vale on business and would end up into that area.  
  
It figured that he'd have to end up in downtown Vale during the same that that Qrow had his lunch.  
  
It figured that he'd end up at the food court at the same time that Qrow was there.

James stepped inside hoping that he'd be able to get something to eat before he had to go to his first meeting of the day. He saw the back of a familiar head- with almost greying hair that stuck up in every direction awkwardly. The man was incredibly thin, with tattooed arms that stuck out from under his sleeves.

It took James a long moment before he realized that he recognized that man- he recognized that body.

 _Qrow_.

Almost instantly upon seeing Qrow, James was ready to turn and _run_.

To his relief, however, Qrow didn't turn around to look at him, instead more intent on ordering what looked to be the most disgusting loaded burrito ever- with every filling possible present. James slid into the line silently and did his best to keep a low profile so that Qrow wouldn't notice him.

Naturally, that wouldn't work. James was six feet, six inches tall. Keeping a low profile when you _already_ poke up above most of the crowd was next to impossible.  
  
Qrow turned, like he was looking for something and James saw the man's eyes widen in shock. James was about to turn back, when he realized that if he did so he wouldn't have a chance to eat for a while. Qrow got his food, and stepped out of the line before making a beeline to where James was standing.  
  
"Hey, Jimmy-" Qrow started, raising a hand to get James' attention on him. "Hey, care to talk to me for a minute?"

James looked away, trying to act like he didn't know who Qrow was. He didn't want to talk to Qrow, and he was seriously considering just going hungry that day if he had to. Anything to avoid Qrow.

He knew that pretending like this wouldn’t work.

But before he could make a decision, Qrow was there, looking up at James with a pair of red eyes and an emotion that was somewhere between sad and angry. "James," Qrow said again, quieter this time. "Please?"  
  
James sighed heavily, stared forward, and spoke up. "I'm sorry," James started, policing his volume and tone so that he didn't end up betraying his thoughts. "I don't know who you are."  
  
He felt bad saying those things. If he looked down at Qrow out of the corner of his eye, he'd be able to see the way that Qrow looked like he'd been absolutely betrayed by James. It was all there, plain as day. It was in the way that Qrow's mouth dropped open a little, and his eyes widened at the front, and the way that everything about him seemed to drop.

And to James, that was a very strange reaction, even if James' refusal to speak to Qrow had been a little bit harsher than would have been expected.

Qrow spoke up again, though this time he was much quieter than he had been before. "Jim?"

James pulled his eyes away from Qrow, feeling very much afraid of what he saw going on in Qrow's facial expressions.

He kept his mouth shut, but knew that the way that his jaw clenched was likely to betray him. Mentally, he looked for a thousand things that he could have said to Qrow that would have fixed this, but the same thing that had been true for the last three months stood true.

James just didn't know how to talk to Qrow. The difference was just that this time he wasn't able to ignore the man's calls. This time, there was no getting out of it with the click of a button. This time, Qrow was standing there, looking heartbroken and maybe even a little scared and angry.

It left James wondering whether he'd angered a god get himself into this position.

Finally, James managed to say something to Qrow. It wasn't much, but it was more than he'd been able to manage over the course of the last three months. "What do you want?"

"I want-" Qrow started. Stopped. Looked down at his overstuffed burrito that had to be roughly the size of a baby, if James' estimation was correct. The red eyed man's lips tightened into a thin line, and then Qrow spoke again. Finally, "Can we talk?"

"I don't know what there is to talk about." James grumbled, still making a point not to make direct eye contact with Qrow. He was too afraid of what he would have seen should he have looked over at the other man.

Would Qrow be there, looking more dejected than before? Would he be shaking in anger too mad to even speak? Would he just turn and walk away, deciding that James was a lost cause as he should have three months prior?

" _Bullshit_." Qrow spat the word at James. It was venomous, angry, and Qrow sounded like he was ready to lash out at any moment and possibly even take matters into his own hands if he had to.

James froze. The woman in the line just in front of James stepped forward, and so James stepped forward in the line as well, closer to the counter where he was going to inevitably be make his order.

Qrow stepped close to James, pressing himself into James' space like he was looking for a fight. His eyes were narrowed, his expression dangerous, and Qrow's body was starting to look like there was a wire inside that had been wound tight.

When that thread snapped, so would Qrow.

James didn't want a fight.

"Qrow, please." James said, keeping his voice quiet as he tried to back away from Qrow, worried that the smaller man would get closer and would end up bumping into him and get reminded of how ugly James was underneath his clothes. Even if Qrow had only seen an arm, James was quite certain that Qrow had considered it ugly. "I just want to get my lunch."

" _You-_ " Qrow straightened up, his anger clearly flaring back up. "You can't just do what you-"

" _Qrow_." James snapped at the thinner man, who nearly jolted to attention at the sound. "Please. I have a meeting and I can't afford to miss it-"

"But you can afford to skip meetings with me? You could afford to walk out of my place of business?" Qrow stepped closer again, and James realized that he wasn't going to be able to get his lunch if things kept going like this. James stepped back away from Qrow, and out of the line. He looked around the area, found the clearest path, and took it.

As was to be expected, Qrow followed soon after.

"James!" Qrow called as James went to the door that would free him from the miniature mall. "Come on, talk to me!"

" _I paid you_." James turned halfway, just long enough that he'd be able to face Qrow and deliver what he needed to say, albeit in a highly defensive stance. "I paid you, I don't know what you want from me."

"I want to know _why_ you did that!" Qrow exclaimed, stepping close to James again. "What the hell? I worked for days and you just-"

"I-"

" _You ran_." Qrow cut James off before he could get a word in edgewise. "You ran, and I've been trying to get into contact with you for three months now because you seriously overpaid on the bill that you racked up." Qrow's eyes narrowed again, his brow furrowing with the motion. "And that's not even to mention the fact that I still have everything I made for you sitting back at the office waiting to be put to use."

"Qrow, I-"

"Don't waste my time again, Ironwood." Qrow snarled. "You're _going_ to come to my office with me," Qrow stepped forward, raising a hand and jabbing a finger in James' direction, "We're going to sort out the payment," Qrow continued, "And then when all of that is done, you're going to take those damn stencils off my hands since I don't think I need them anymore, _got it?_ "

James inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring as he did so. He didn't want to have to talk to Qrow, especially when the other man was so visibly furious with him.

Slowly, he counted out his options for what he could say, only to find that there were very few things that he could really say to Qrow in the end.

He’d fucked up, that was all that there was to it.

Nothing he could do could really fix anything unless James actually just went ahead and did what Qrow wanted for him- even if that thing that Qrow wanted for him to do was potentially going to get him fired.

James frowned, and looked away from Qrow, trying to come to a conclusion. If he didn't go with Qrow, it wasn't exactly any skin off of his back, but if he did that then surely Qrow would never forgive him for it. Not that he knew why that mattered.

If he went with Qrow, he ran the risk of getting into trouble for skipping a meeting. Getting fired.

James came to a decision, and looked at Qrow directly. Finally, he spoke up, and said in the most careful, even voice that he could "I have half an hour."

Qrow nodded, then looked to the door. He reached out, and grabbed James by the right wrist. James stiffened immediately under the contact and tried to pull away, only to find himself being dragged out the door by an all too insistent Qrow. After about a block of walking, Qrow let James go and James decided to follow after, albeit quietly.

The red eyed man shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and he looked like he was going to be permanently angry if James didn't give him his way this time around. The fact that Qrow had bought a burrito had been forgotten. The tattoo artist feeling like he was much more focused on getting what he needed out of James.

Which to James, was _very_ worrying.

The two walked silently until they reached the shop. Qrow pushed the door open and walked through, not particularly caring whether it swung back to hit James or not. To James' relief, the door didn't and he just stood by it, not really sure what he was supposed to do. Qrow slipped behind the counter and into his office, where the door closed behind him.

For just now, James was alone in the front half of the store. He looked back at the door over his shoulder, wondering whether he'd be able to get away with running again or not. He could walk out, change his number, and then he'd never have to deal with this again.

No, James told himself.

 _That_ was a bad idea.

From where he was standing, James could hear the sound of Qrow moving things around in his office, along with the sound of something falling to the floor and Qrow swearing loudly.

The door swung open, and Qrow stepped out with the same large folder that he'd been carrying the last time that James had seen him. The red eyed man dropped the folder onto the counter haphazardly and looked up at James expectantly.

Slowly, James approached the counter and touched the top of the folder so that he could slide it a bit closer to himself. He was expected to take this with him, it seemed.

Qrow leaned in and forced eye contact between the two of them before looking to the door. "Not going to run again?" Qrow asked, his brow furrowed with angry and his black hair hanging into his face. "Because I don't have the energy for your bullshit."

James stepped back, actually a bit shocked by Qrow's words, but not really sure why he was shocked.

He'd wasted a lot of Qrow's time and energy, James reminded himself.

"No." James said, averting his eyes away from Qrow's so that he could at the very least escape some of the intensity there. Escape from Qrow's completely justified anger. "I'm not going to run."

" _Good._ " Qrow said. The red eyed man reached under the counter to find a checkbook. James watched as Qrow leafed through it until he found what he was looking for, but was confused when Qrow stopped, staring down at the check that was clearly written out, but had yet to be torn away from the rest of the checkbook.

Those red eyes slid from the check to the folder that was sitting on the counter between James and Qrow, then back to the check again. All at once, Qrow's eyes snapped up to meet James' face, and Qrow spoke up.

"I'm going to give you _one_ last chance, Jimmy." Qrow said, setting the checkbook down in front of him upside down so that he couldn't end up losing his place. Qrow planted his hands on either side of him and leaned forward across the table and into James' space. "Do you want me to give you that tattoo, or not?"

_What?_

James froze and began to wrack his brain to see whether or not he actually was even capable of answering such a question. He'd thought that Qrow had just wanted for James to get rid of the stencils by taking them with him or something. The absolute last thing that he'd expected to hear from Qrow was _this._

He floundered, looking for anything that he could say which could at least pose a chance of assuaging the difficult situation that James now found himself in.

This was complicated, this wasn't something that could be done on a whim.

Three months before, James had thought that he was ready for this work to be done only to find that in the end he wasn't ready for it at all.

And now Qrow was asking him whether or not he wanted to get an extremely large tattoo done on a whim or not.

And so naturally, James didn't actually have a good answer for the other man. He couldn't just give his affirmative and jump into the chair right that moment- that just wasn't how James was. Instead of answering Qrow, for a long minute James just looked down at his two hands, to see that they were different as always.

One gloved.

One natural.

One metal.

One flesh.

One _his_.

One _not_.

Qrow could make them match.

Yes, he could make them match, even if it meant that he had to skip a meeting.

This may have been James' only chance to actually make this work.

Any unappealing additions that he ended up with as a result of angering his tattoo artist were well deserved at this point, anyways.

James balled his hands into fists and closed his eyes. He turned his head away from Qrow's line of sight just a little bit before he finally managed to say something for himself and actually answer the question.

_Was he ready?_

No.

Would he have another chance at this?

No.

"I want it." James said, his voice barely coming out above a whisper. He couldn't bring himself to make eye contact with Qrow again, out of fear for what he would see if he let himself look up. It was too much, it was too worrying, but he was _going_ to do this. He was going to let Qrow tattoo his left arm and make the two sides of him finally match.

Qrow leaned across the counter, which creaked quietly under his weight, and he raised his voice to whisper to James the same question that he'd asked a few times three months before. "James," He started. James focused on the way that Qrow's hands were resting on the countertop, exposed, and tattooed, and covered with shiny bits and bobs that stood out from his skin in a way that looked _good_.

He could have that,James told himself.

Maybe.

He could have that confidence too.

Maybe.

"-Are you sure?"

James looked up, and his and Qrow's eyes met. He steeled his features, steeled his heart, and finally he spoke.

" _Yes._ "

Qrow opened his mouth to say something, but pulled away, placing some distance back between him and James. The man lifted his head up and focused on a clock that stood against the wall, proudly displaying the time for the entire world to see. James watched Qrow, and took note of the way that the man's scowl sharpened as he looked up at that clock.

The tattoo artist's eyes met James'. He reached for one of the large leather books that he kept around the office and flipped it open to find a day on the schedule. Qrow picked the nearest one that was fully unbooked, and looked up at James. "If I make this appointment, you're going to show up, _right?_ "

"Yes."

Qrow drew a block around the date in red pen and haphazardly scribbled in James' name before pushing the book across the counter for James to look down at. Sure enough, that was it. The appointment was made. Qrow set the pen that he'd been using down between the sheets of paper in the book and met James' eyes again.

"Sign it." Qrow ordered, pushing the book a little bit closer to James again. "Just so that I know I _have your word_."

James swallowed visibly, reached out, and picked up the pen. In the neatest version of his signature that he could manage, James signed the book and slid it back over to Qrow, who looked it over to check that everything seemed to be up to snuff before he flipped the appointment book back closed with a heavy thud.

"Wednesday." Qrow announced, finally straightening up and stretching a little bit with the motion. "You're going to be there, and you're going to be ready. Don't wear too many sleeves."

Those words made James' stomach feel like it was about to do back flips, but James knew that he couldn't run because of this again. Not when he'd already almost ruined things for the sake of his own vanity and nerves.

"Right." James said, his voice only coming out as barely above a whisper again. He bit his lip, knowing that the tone was probably more than enough to betray his worries to Qrow. Luckily for James, however, Qrow didn't say anything about it.

The man picked up the folder again and pulled it back to his side of the counter and flipped the checkbook that he'd been fiddling with earlier back closed. "You're going to be here, Jimmy. If you hang me out to dry again, I _will_ make sure to charge you double for whatever it is you want."

James nodded. That was good enough for him. That was probably going to be the best that he could get out of Qrow at this point. And James was willing to accept that. Whatever happened at this point was all his own fault anyways.

"Of course." James answered, looking up to the clock himself and frowning. "I have to go."

"I know." Qrow answered. James let his eyes drift over to the artist and felt them linger for a moment too long. "You should get going."

James was almost lost in the sight of Qrow's red eyes when those words snapped him back to reality. "Right." He forced out, standing up straight and moving his hands so that he could smooth down his jacket collar and check that his sleeves were in proper order.

James took the first step back away from the counter, then the next, then the next after that until he was at the door, pushing it open, and stepping outside.

He tried not to think about what he was going to have to come back to on Wednesday when it was finally time for this to happen.

In the end, James had the strong feeling that the best thing he could hope for was just going to be that Qrow was in a good mood.

 

* * *

 

After his run-in with Qrow, James couldn’t sleep. It was a simple impossibility. James couldn’t empty his head long enough to be able to drift off, and every time he closed his eyes he found himself drifting back over to Qrow in his thoughts.

He still wasn’t quite sure why he’d let Qrow schedule an appointment for him.

James still didn’t know whether he ever actually could be sure about this.

Despite all of his time that he’d spent looking at things, learning, reading, trying to make himself feel like he was even _slightly_ alright with what was to come, he couldn’t shake the feeling that things were going to go more than just a little bit poorly.

But he forced himself through it. He forced himself through the day to day because at least that way if he fell apart he at least still had his normal life to point to and show that no, things were _perfectly_ fine.

In the end, it was futile, but it was what James needed to do if he was going to be able to make it through things with his head intact.

He got home on Tuesday night, feeling a little exhausted after work and unable to focus on much of anything other than the impending appointment with Qrow.

He didn’t even know why Qrow still wanted to do this tattoo after everything. After being strung along for months, _why_ would Qrow want to do this?

None of it made sense. Qrow’s near mood swing the day before didn’t help on that front. Instead it just left James feeling even more lost because nothing about it could parse into logic.

James got home to his empty apartment and almost immediately went straight to his bedroom in hopes that he would be able to relax there, if only slightly.

James didn't strip out of his clothes from that day. There were parts of him that were simply just too tired, and as much as James wanted to be able to rest easy, it wasn't going to happen.

There was a worming feeling, something whispering into his ear that just said, quite loudly _"you are going to have to go back."_

And it was true.

James had put up with a lot over the course of the last few months. He never appreciated having his phone blown up constantly, for instance.

But at the same time, James _knew_ that Qrow's constant attempts to contact him were all his own fault. Nobody else could be blamed for it. Nobody else had avoided Qrow like the plague, or had been too chickenshit to reply or call back.

Nobody else had gone into that business only at a time when they knew that Qrow wasn't going to be there.

No, James was at fault for all of this.

And yet still, somehow, Qrow still wanted him to show up for an appointment. Qrow still wanted to get this tattoo done.

But there was still a part of James that simply _wasn't sure_. There was no getting around the fact that after months, he still wasn't able to walk around even his own home with part of his right side exposed.

No matter what, he was going to have expose that part of him to Qrow. And when the job was done, he would have to walk out into the world with everything showing for _everyone_ to see.

James wasn't sure that was something that he could actually manage. He was going to walk out onto the street, and people were going to stare, and everything was going to be awful.

No matter how much James tried to avoid thinking about it, or letting that drag him down, he always was.

In the end, he was always a victim to his own fears.

He covered his face with his hands and inhaled deeply. He knew that he probably shouldn't have just sat around, quietly suffering.

The smart thing for him to do would be to go ahead and try to get into contact with Glynda or someone else that would be able to act as a logical voice for him to talk to.

Part of James just told him that the best thing to do was to try and call Glynda come morning. She would probably be willing to listen and talk, but he also expected that Glynda would probably just end up telling him how badly he'd screwed up, and that wasn't something that James needed.

Not now.

Especially not now.

He may have laid on his bed staring up at the ceiling for over an hour before he finally forced himself up onto his feet so that he could actually make an effort to deal with these things.

It wasn't an ideal situation. It never would be, but he needed to at least go ahead and _try._

 

* * *

 

At 11:22 on Tuesday morning, James silenced his phone and set it face-down on his desk so that he wouldn’t be distracted by it when Qrow would inevitably call him in a minute or two. Cutting out distractions like this was about the only way that he managed to _focus_ most days.

He was sure that not answering Qrow’s call when it arrived was going to bite him later, but James needed to focus on his job, not the background panic that he’d been living with for three months now.

Frankly, he should have been used to it by now.

James focused on his work for as long as he could. When it was his lunch break he finally got up, took his phone, and walked out of the building so that he could maybe answer Qrow and let the guy know that things had changed.

It probably wouldn’t be enough, but James needed to at least try.

He leaned against the outer wall of the office building and unlocked his phone. As expected, one text and one voicemail were waiting for him. He didn’t bother to look at either message, instead opting to just call Qrow so that he didn’t have to worry too much.

James pressed his thumb to Qrow's number before raising the phone up to his ear so that he could listen for whenever Qrow picked up.

There was a small part of James that expected for Qrow to just ignore his call as retribution, but at the same time, James had the feeling that if he went ignored it was going to be because Qrow was busy instead of just ignoring him.

Or at least, James _hoped_ that Qrow wasn't so petty as to throw the same things back at him for no reason. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. The phone was picked up halfway through the second ring, and Qrow's response left James with an undeniable smile on his face.

"Branwen Funeral Services." Qrow greeted him. "You stab ‘em, we slab ‘em."

For a moment, James questioned the series of life choices that had brought him to this moment. He'd hoped that Qrow would be a  bit professional, but on the other hand-

"Hello, Qrow." James said, keeping his tone as level as possible. "I, um. I'm sorry I didn't-"

"You're sorry?" Qrow scoffed into the phone. "Serves you right for ignoring me like that."

"Look, I was working." James said. "I couldn't afford to take a personal call. I'm on break now though." He paused. He probably should have made a point to check that he wasn't bothering Qrow at all with his call. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"Nah." Qrow said. In the background, James could hear the sound of the guy's seat creaking as Qrow probably leaned a little too far back in his seat. "Just working on a piece for a client."

"Ah." James answered. "I'm glad I’m not bothering you?"

"I was hoping to hear from you anyways." Qrow said between sipping audibly from some sort of drink that required a straw. "I wanted to see if you could come in and we could... I dunno, talk this stuff out like adults?"

James swallowed. He knew that there was more than just a little that he and Qrow needed to talk about, but at the same time he couldn't exactly bring himself to acknowledge _exactly_ how long that list probably was.

"I..." James hesitated. "I'd need a chance to get work off, or I could come in on the weekend?" He bit his lower lip, knowing that the offer alone probably wasn't going to be enough. "I know you probably don't believe me."

On the other end of the line, James heard Qrow laugh loudly. "Nah, you're fine as long as you show up." He shook his head and sighed heavily. "Point is, I want you to come in so that we can go over what will actually happen."

There was the sound of papers rustling in the background. James couldn't help but wonder what Qrow was looking at. "I also wanted to talk to you about-" Qrow cut himself off. "I'll explain when I see you. Saturday morning sound good?"

"Yeah." James whispered. "I'll try to be there, Qrow."

"You better be there." Qrow said into the phone. "I'll talk to you later, alright? Get back to work Jimmy."

"It's James."

Qrow scoffed again. "I know."

The phone clicked when Qrow hanged up, and James did his best not to worry about whatever it was that Qrow had in store for him. All that he knew was that a very, very large part of him was absolutely _terrified_.

 

* * *

 

The next few days were mostly uneventful. Qrow still made his daily calls to James, and James answering them to reassure Qrow that yes, he would be there for their meeting on Saturday.

It was mostly just a precaution, but as Saturday morning drew closer and closer, James found himself getting more and more _nervous_ about the whole thing. The truth of the matter was that he didn’t know what he wanted from it, and he had even less of an idea of what Qrow wanted him there for.

There was still a detail that Qrow hadn’t bothered to fill James in on, and above all else, that was the thing that was making him so nervous about the whole ordeal. He needed the full story, and it just hadn’t been given to him.

But Saturday morning came.

James spent the morning trapped in a half- ritual, getting dressed and making sure that he was wearing things that could be easily removed at the drop of the hat should Qrow decide that he wanted him down in the chair.

What that meant for James was that he was going to be going to Qrow’s in a t-shirt that was dark enough that it was difficult to pick up on the differences in his body like the ridges of his scars and prosthetics.

Over that, a sweater, and the glove to top the whole thing off.

James _seriously_ hoped that Qrow wasn’t observant enough to realize how different his body was. He didn’t know whether or not Qrow had noticed before, but now it was _different_.

Now James was a lot more afraid of the guy and what he could do to him.

Qrow had power over his body. _That_ was terrifying. James already didn’t trust people with his body to begin with, but knowing that Qrow had the power to mark his body on a permanent basis…

It was a bit too much.

James managed the drive out to Vale.

The only thing that was able to keep his head clear was the fact that he had music blasting as loudly as his car’s speakers could manage. When he finally made it into Vale, James made a point to part at the same parking garage that he always did before beginning the walk over to Emerald City Tattoos.

With every step towards the building, it got harder and harder to take the next step as all of the stresses and anxieties that had overwhelmed James at his last scheduled meeting began to overtake him and weigh him down.

No.

He couldn’t let himself fell apart like this.

Not again.

James reached the door to the shop and actually stopped himself, one hand hovering over the door handle.

He had to go in, James _knew_ that. He had to just will himself the strength so that he could open the door, step inside, and talk to Qrow about whatever it was that Qrow wanted to talk about.

He raised his eyes, just enough so that he could see whether or not anyone was sitting at the counter just inside. Sure enough, there was someone there- James was able to make out the figure sitting there as Qrow’s easily enough.

In front of the counter there was a small gaggle of teenagers, but James tried to not pay them the most attention.

James pulled the door open and stepped inside.

Qrow looked up over the teenager’s heads. James didn’t say anything to him, and just decided to seat himself on one of the benches near the wall, at least until Qrow wasn’t busy. He crossed his right leg over his left and tugged down the pant leg so that nothing could show.

Slowly, James reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to check the time. It was almost eleven, but James didn’t actually think that meant anything. Qrow had work to do, and James just needed to sit off to the side and wait.

He was a patient man.

He could do that.

Eventually the students streamed out, and that was when James decided that it was time to get up. He stood up, smoothed down his clothes, and approached Qrow. The artist looked up at him and slid down off of his stool before walking around the side of the counter.

“Hey.” Qrow greeted him, casually sliding his hands down into his pockets as he did so. “Glad you showed up.”

“Hello.” James managed to say, his voice and words a little more stilted than they should have been. “I hope I’m not late?”

“Not at all.” For just a second, James recognized that Qrow’s red eyes were wandering over him, and James couldn’t help but to wonder whether or not the guy was trying to figure out how his body was. A part of James told him that couldn’t be it. James cleared his throat and stood up straight. “Shall we?”

Qrow nodded and walked to the door to his room, which he pushed open with one hand so that James could step in behind him. The door closed behind James, and he went straight for the seat that he’d taken every other time that he’d been there.

On the other hand, Qrow flopped down into his chair and leaned back in it before giving James a quick look up and down. “So you look good.”

James swallowed, unsure of what he was supposed to say that. He pulled his eyes away from Qrow and then spoke up. “So you wanted to talk?”

“I did.” Qrow said. “Just... wanted to figure some things out.”

“Okay.” James mumbled. “What is it?”

“Why’d you run?”

Oh, _there_ it was. 

James had been expecting that sort of question from Qrow. It was the single most obvious place where the two of them needed to talk. He looked down at his hands, not really sure whether or not there was a good answer that he could give about the topic.

He found himself clenching and unclenching his right hand involuntarily.

No matter what, James knew that he would come off poorly if he tried to tell the truth about what had happened to make him run. 

"I-" James tried to start, only to stop again. He could _feel_ the weight of Qrow's gaze upon him and it was making it _much_ harder for him to actually communicate how he was feeling. He closed his eyes and shook his head and then finally forced himself to speak. "I don't know. I just..."  
  
"You just?"

"I got scared, I guess." James mumbled. "I kind of just realized that what was coming was going to be permanent and I _couldn't-_ "  
  
James shook his head. Picked up his gaze to look over at Qrow and see how the artist was reacting to him. To his surprise, Qrow didn't look like he was angry at him or anything. Instead, Qrow looked incredibly calm, almost sympathetic, even.  
  
"I get that." Qrow said, quietly. The guy leaned forward in his seat, resting on his elbows so that he could sit comfortably. "Let me tell you a story."  
  
_"What?"_  
  
"Let me tell you a story." Qrow said again.

James nodded, and let his eyes flow up and down Qrow's arms for just a second before pulling his gaze away politely. He probably shouldn't have been looking at the guy like that, but at the same time, he needed _something_ that could help to distract him a little bit.  
  
"Okay." He finally managed.  
  
Qrow scooted forward in his seat, rolling over towards the edge of the table-bed that James was sitting on. "I got my first tattoo when I was seventeen." Qrow began to explain. He looked to the door for just a second, and dipped his volume so that he didn't get overheard saying anything that would come off as incriminating.  
  
"So?"  
  
"When I got my first tattoo, I didn't know where I'd be able to get one without parental permission. My twin sister Raven and I decided to go into it together." Qrow explained, turning his arm so that the feather and bird tattoo that ran up his forearm was a bit better exposed. "But at the time, neither of us cared that much about it. We were getting these tattoos because we wanted to be cool not because-"

Qrow cut himself off. He frowned for just a moment before he began speaking again. "-We just wanted to be cool. Stand out, rebel, you know how it is."  
  
"Teenager stuff." James said, unsure.  
  
"Exactly." Qrow reached out for his right arm with his left, and ran his thumb over one of the longer feathers on his arm. "The point is, we _knew_ that it was going to be permanent. But we didn't _care_ so much." Qrow shook his head, and his hair flopped about with the motion. "And we made a mistake. The artist we saw was _terrible._ "

Qrow's thumb stroked over the feather tattoo on his arm again. This time, it was a little more insistent, almost like Qrow was trying to uncover something with every pass of his thumb. James focused his eyes on that tattoo even more insistently. He couldn't make out anything odd about it, but he also didn't know whether or not there was something that he was looking for. A stray line, anything.

Qrow kept on talking.

"So this artist, he was cheap. We found him through a family friend. He said that he'd be willing to go ahead and do our tattoos, and because a family friend suggested him, we just trusted him." Qrow smiled slightly and shook his head, almost like he was living through all of the regrets that had brought him to where he was sitting.

James frowned. He leaned back slightly in his seat and found himself bringing his hands together in his lap. He didn't say anything to Qrow, just listened politely. There was a large part of him that didn't know what he was doing there, or what it was that he was supposed to be listening for in Qrow's story.

Despite it all, James couldn't piece together what the relation between Qrow's first tattoo and him was, aside from the fact that he'd come in looking for his first tattoo.

Qrow looked up from the tattoo and locked his eyes with James, even letting a slight smile crease his lips as he continued to talk. “He was _terrible_ , Jim.” Qrow laughed. “I asked for him to do a bird on my arm, nothing weird. Nothing that would have been especially hard.”

He shook his head, and for just a second Qrow’s hair flopped about with the motion.

"Like I said, the guy ended up being terrible. Now, when we went in we thought things would be fine- he was good on paper. But what we got was so bad that it became this huge issue." Qrow looked up at the clock that was on the far side of the wall, like he was checking for a time that ultimately didn't matter. "I wish that I'd known better back then. I wouldn't have had to have Oz tattoo over that dumb bird if I did." 

James shook his head, doing his absolute best to piece together what it was that Qrow was actually meaning to tell him then. He still didn't know exactly what Qrow was trying to communicate, aside that it may have been something about permanency.  
  
"Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"Because I get why you ran." Qrow said. However, almost immediately he seemed to get caught up on his words. "I mean, I think I have an idea as to why you ran. You realized that it was permanent and with something that big-"  
  
"There's no going back."

"Exactly. Can’t just cover that up like a dumb little bird." Qrow said. A long silence hanged in the air between them as both of them searched for the right words to say to each other. James didn't know whether he should have gone ahead and offered condolences for Qrow's first tattoo, or whether he should have offered his point of view on the issue.  
  
He shook his head. "Is there a..." James paused. "Is there some reason that you're telling me this?"  
  
"I think I have a solution for your little..." Qrow paused, looking for something to say. Or rather, James figured that Qrow was looking for the best possible thing that he could have gone and said. He had the feeling that Qrow was aware of the delicateness of this situation, at least to some degree. Qrow frowned, then forced out the next words. "- _stage fright_ ."  
  
James cocked his head to the side, feeling more than just a little bit confused by what Qrow was saying. He didn't know how _anyone_ could possibly help to make things better. The whole idea of getting a tattoo in the first place had been just an idea that he'd tried to go through with only to find out that he wasn't quite strong enough.  
  
Whatever solution Qrow did have, James didn't know how much it would help.

Finally, he managed to force some words out. "Could you please explain what that means?" James asked. "Because I'm not entirely certain I follow."  
  
"So Oz and I, a while back we bought some ink and this weird sealer stuff. It was a festival, so we were doing quick stencil tattoos on people and got this sealer so that we could do kids." Qrow leaned back in his seat and crossed one leg over the other. "It lasts about a week and a half, not long, but-"  
  
"You-"  
  
"If you wanted to and were willing to pay for it, I could give you the tattoo and seal it on instead of making it permanent. If you decide you don't want it, you just call me, come in, and we'll sort out the financial stuff there. And if you do-"  
  
"Then we do it for real."

"Exactly."  
  
James swallowed visibly as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. He closed his eyes for just a second and leaned forward so that he could rest his forehead against his closed hands. He didn't know whether or not he actually wanted to try it, but at the same time-  
  
It could be the key to feeling whole again.  
  
He swallowed. He didn't look up, not long enough for it to be noticeable. He let his eyes flick up long enough that he was able to see that Qrow was leaning in towards him with a deeply concerned expression on his face.  
  
"Jim?"

James didn't want to run, even though there were parts of him that were telling him to do that again. He inhaled deeply, and let out a heavy exhale as he tried to come to any sort of suitable answer for Qrow.  
  
He pulled his head away from his hands and peeked up at Qrow. He closed his eyes again and then nodded, but only slightly.  
  
"Okay." He managed to whisper. "Okay."

“You sure?” Qrow asked, now standing up so that he could get something. The artist walked across the room, and James managed to pick his head up long enough that he was able to track Qrow’s motions. He didn't know what he was looking for, but for some reason, he just needed to feel like he had something there to distract himself from the feeling of dread that was crushing down on him.  
  
Which was weird, considering that the solution that Qrow had just given was one that was strictly non-permanent. But there was still that knowledge that there was the possibility that going ahead and doing this would just make things get worse for James.  
  
It was one thing to make everything match- it was another for him to actually be okay with how he looked once that happened.  
  
No matter what, the nerves were there, they were strong, and they were very, _very_ real.  
  
Qrow pulled down a folder which James immediately recognized from the night that he'd ran. The art on the outside of the folder was still the same. It was all the same pictures- corn, birds, monsters, pretty girls. He’d seen it a few days before, as well.  
  
Qrow opened the folder and checked inside for something before setting it down on the bed next to James. "If you want to do this, we can do it today." Qrow suggested, sliding the stencils a little bit closer to James. "The colors will be a little more than what they'll look like when they're finally in your skin but-" Qrow shrugged. "Are you sure you want to do this?"  
  
"Yes." Pause. "No." Sigh. " _I don't know._ " The words were terribly bitter on James' tongue, but it was all that he could think to say. It was all true- he really didn't have even the slightest idea as to what he was doing there, but he needed to come up with something if he was going to make it through this.

Instead of taking his usual seat in the stool across the room from James, Qrow decided to actually hop up onto the bed next to James on his left side. He picked up the folder and pulled it open, bringing up the piece that was going to make up James' thumb first to look at.  
  
"You do want this, right?" Qrow asked. "Tell me what's going on in that head of yours. I don't want to do anything that you aren't ready for-"  
  
"No, I do-" James started. He found himself pulling away from Qrow, just a little bit so that he didn't have to risk brushing up against the other man and making himself- or both of them, uncomfortable. "It's just..." James paused and did his best to sort through his head until he found the right words to use. The words that would make everything make sense to more people than just himself. "I've been struggling with the one side for so long that _I don't know_ if making the other match will fix anything."  
  
James swallowed visibly. "And I'm worried because if I can't even-" James shook his head and stopped himself from continuing, just in case he ended up doing something that he shouldn't have. There were things that Qrow didn't need to know, or just plain weren't Qrow's business. "There's... just a chance that it makes things worse."  
  
Qrow was silent. At his side, James was able to feel the tiny motions in Qrow's body- the slight rise and fall of his body as he breathed, the motions of Qrow's legs as he fidgeted in his seat. All in all, it was incredibly distracting, but James did his best not to let himself get bogged down in that.

"Please say something." James mumbled, making a point to force his hands together so that he couldn't risk showing how close he was to shaking. His right wouldn't shake, but his left would. He could at least hide it. " _Please._ "  
  
"I want to." Qrow replied. "But I need to know something from you, Jimmy."  
  
"James."  
  
"James, then.' Qrow corrected. "How do you feel about that right arm of yours?"  
  
"I can't stand it." James managed to force the word out, though it was barely audible. "I hate it. It's not-" He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. James kept himself from changing how he was breathing with everything that he was able to summon towards him as he tried to drag up the next words he needed to say. "It's not _me._ "  
  
"What do you want me to do for you?" Qrow's voice asked, albeit distantly. Qrow didn't try to bring himself closer to where James was. He didn't try to let things make more sense to him because that wasn't what he needed.  
  
A hand on his back.  
  
James jolted at the sensation and pulled away from Qrow slightly as he tried to hide how startled he was by the touch. The first thing that came to mind for James wasn't whether or not Qrow was trying to comfort him- which was the most likely possibility.

No, all that James could think about was whether or not Qrow could feel the ridges of the metal plates that made up his shoulder, or the hexagonal plates that reinforced his spinal column. 

To his surprise though, Qrow didn't say anything. He simply slipped off of the bed and held his hands up in front of him in surrender. James couldn't think of anything to say- his mind wouldn't allow it. Not then. He just focused his gaze onto Qrow and tried to calm himself.  
  
James brought his hands back down to the bed where he was sitting. He let his fingers stroke against the blanket that covered the damn thing as he tried to ground himself back into place instead of being so caught up in his own head.

"Jim?" Qrow asked. James managed to lock his eyes onto Qrow's face. "Do you need to go home?"  
  
"I-" James tried to start. "I don't know."  
  
"Okay." Qrow said. "What do you need?"  
  
James couldn't think of anything. His expression fell back down to his hands and had to work incredibly hard to put together whether or not there was _anything_ that could actually help him. James just didn't know.

James tried with all of his might to control his breathing, only to find that it didn't really do much to help him. He blinked, hard, and forced himself to sit upright as he tried to at the very least come up with _something_ that he could say to Qrow.

But it was difficult- he didn't even know _why_ Qrow was acting like this all of a sudden. This wasn't the same Qrow that James had gotten used to- this wasn't the same guy that used to call him all the time looking for something that James had never quite been able to figure out.

_No._

This Qrow was different, and deeply, deeply caring.

"I don't know." James finally forced out. He shook his head and drew his body in on himself as he tried to level things out as best as he possibly could. "I don't know."

Qrow frowned and looked around the room, like he was looking for anything that could serve as even the smallest of distractions. There was a pause, and then Qrow was reaching out for James. "C'mon. Get up."

_"What?"_

"We're going for a walk, and we're going to talk about this, okay?" Qrow looked at the door then back at James. "I put this morning aside so that I could finally talk to you, and I'm not letting it get stopped now."

James nodded and slipped down from the bed. He forced himself to his feet and stretched slightly before tugging down onto his shirt at the wrist so that he wouldn't risk showing anything that he didn't want to.

Qrow looked at him and frowned for just a second before continuing forward to the door to the office. He led the way out of the store, and James just followed behind him, unsure of whether or not he actually wanted to go ahead and take this walk with Qrow.

The tattoo artist stopped at the door, just for a second before casting his eyes over his shoulder to Ozpin, who was talking to a kid who couldn’t have been any older than twenty one about a tattoo.

“Hey, Oz, I’ll be back in later.” Qrow called.

Ozpin looked up at the two of them over their too-small glasses, and just nodded to give silent permission. Satisfied, Qrow took the first step out of the building and onto the sidewalk. James stepped out behind Qrow and shoved his hands down into his pockets so that he didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing what his body was like.

Qrow locked his eyes onto James. “Ready to go?” He asked, sounding entirely too excited for this walk.

James forced a wary smile and nodded. Qrow just smiled back at him and began to lead them through the streets of Vale so that the two of them could just talk.

James got the strong feeling that Qrow was just doing it with the theory in mind that taking James out of the parlor would somehow make things easier on him.

Which was unlikely at best, but James could appreciate the fact that Qrow was putting in the effort to make this work.

Though there was a large part of James that told him that Qrow was the one putting in most- if not _all_ of the effort. James was just mostly along for the ride, in a lot of ways.

For a little while, it was just quiet. James couldn’t think of anything that he wanted to say to Qrow, and Qrow seemed content to just walk with James instead of getting too wrapped up in conversation for a few minutes. James tried to let himself relax and fell into step alongside Qrow.

They didn’t talk over the course of most of their walk. It wasn’t until they were sitting down at a park bench alongside the river- James had needed it because he was starting to feel some pain shooting up his hip.

He tried to play it off as a cramp.

As James seated himself on the bench that was at the river's edge, Qrow walked towards the bank of the river like he was looking for something that James couldn't quite figure out. James leaned back in the bench and tried to close his eyes, but then he heard Qrow's voice, calling for his attention.

"Hey, Jimmy!" Qrow called.

James picked his head up and even seriously considered going straight for the same correction that he always did with Qrow. He didn't know how hard it would be for him to remind Qrow that his name was in fact James be he decided against it because there was a part of James- a pretty large part at that, which told him that telling Qrow that probably wouldn't _care._

"What is it?" James asked, swallowing slightly.

Qrow held up a rock. It was mostly flat, but still rounded at the top. "Come throw these with me."

_"Why?"_

"Because." Qrow shifted and tossed the stone out onto the water like it was a frisbee. James watched as it skipped across the water before finally dropping out of sight. "I think you need to learn to live a little."

James tried not to question what that meant. He shook his head and let out a low sigh before getting up and carefully walking down the grassy bank until he was next to Qrow. He tried to ignore the way that pain shot straight up his spine with every step. He stopped next to Qrow, and nearly had to violently jerk away when he felt Qrow's grip on his right arm.

He stared down into his hand to see that Qrow had forced a small, flat stone- a lot like the one that Qrow had just thrown across the river into it.

"Throw it." Qrow said, locking his eyes with James and refusing to slip away for just a moment too long. "C'mon."

"Why?" James asked, flipping the stone over in his grip and trying to ignore the way that it just felt different than it probably should have. The texture wasn't there, and James was pretty sure that the temperature had to be off at the very least.

"Because it'll be good for you." Qrow answered with a shrug. "Just... imagine it's your troubles, and throw it."

"Why?"

_"Just throw the damn rock."_

James frowned, unsatisfied with the lack of explanation and tossed the rock back into his left hand so that he'd be able to get a proper grip that way before throwing it towards the water.

The rock fell into the water with an unsatisfying plop.

James frowned, thought he didn't actually know what he'd been hoping for to happen when it landed. Maybe he'd just wanted for it to fly and skip across the water as satisfyingly as Qrow's stone had.

Qrow stepped up alongside him and let out a low whistle that sounded like Qrow was just wholly unsatisfied.

"Don't worry about it."

"It's just a rock, Qrow." James answered, already slipping his hands down into his pockets. "Why do you-"

"Think of it as a metaphor, Jim." Qrow said. He shook his head and smiled up at James. "You probably wanna head home, don't you?"

"I don't know." James admitted. "I should but..."

"But?"

"I don't know that I'll be good to drive." There was a certain uncomfortable silence that hanged in the air between him and Qrow. James realized that Qrow had his eyes glued on him, like he was expecting to hear some sort of clear explanation from James about the matter.

James swallowed and began to speak again. "I'm on... painkillers. A lot of them."

"Is that what it is?" Qrow asked, his eyes narrowing slightly and locking onto James. "Or is it something else."

James looked away from Qrow and he had to rush to come up with anything that he could say that would distract Qrow away from the true issue at hand- which was that James' hip was going to make driving the hour back to Atlas nearly impossible.

Qrow didn't know about the leg. Or the spine. Or the fact that James' prosthetics wound around James' entire right side.

He didn't know whether or not there was anything that he could _actually_ say to Qrow to explain himself without giving away the whole gambit that James had built up around himself. As long as it was just a question of whether Qrow knew about his arm, James didn't mind.

But more... more was different.

"It's just pain, Qrow." James finally said to explain the situation without having to raise too many questions from Qrow. "And it's a long drive."

Qrow hummed and stared back out at the river in front of them, like he was looking for any sort of solution that he could offer in order to fix this.

"Stay at my place tonight."

"What?"

"I can do this job at home, Jimmy. No needles, nothing to worry about. Come back to my place, I'll give you a place to sleep, and you'll get your temporary tattoo done."

James swallowed, unsure of whether there was going to be a way for him to avoid what was ultimately going to end up being the elephant in the room. He shook his head. Turning Qrow down was just the best way to deal with this.

"I'll get a hotel." James said. He flashed Qrow the best smile that he could just so that he wouldn't end up coming off as rude. "Thank you for the offer, though."

"It's fine." Qrow said with a shrug. "Want to come back in the morning? I can do the tattoo then and then everything will be good." Quiet. "Sound alright?"

"Yeah." James mumbled. "Sounds good."

 

* * *

 

 

James woke up in an empty motel room.

Upon waking he immediately had to deal with the fact that it was going to be an ordeal getting out to Emerald City Tattoos without coming off weird for showing up in the same clothes that he’d worn the day before. He knew that Qrow probably wouldn’t mind it that much, but James _did_ mind it.

He ran through what mostly ended up being his typical morning routine, just heavily amended. There was no getting into fresh clothes- something that was enough to make his skin crawl, there was no making a cup of coffee, none of that.

The most that James managed to do was shower and use one of the plastic cups that had been left in his room to wash down his medication.

James stared at himself in the mirror and tried to convince himself that it was going to be okay if he went to the store and let Qrow do the work that they’d talked about the day before. He just had to show up and sit down, and that was it.

He looked down at his hands and wondered whether or not he should go without the glove that day. There was a part of him that really wanted to go ahead and make that step- he was going to have limbs that matched for the most part much sooner than later.

It was just a question of whether he could _do_ this or not.

James’ hand hovered over the white glove as he struggled to come to any sort of solution. He swallowed and picked the glove up before stowing it away in his pocket where he wouldn’t have to look at it directly. The least that he could do was keep it on him in case things got to be a little bit too much for him to handle.

James didn’t mind doing that so much.

There was nothing wrong with a safety net, after all.

He finished packing up what little he did have in his motel room and went to the front desk so that he could check out for the day. He didn’t think that he had any reason to think that he’d end up back at the hotel. He doubted that his meeting with Qrow was going to take that long, and there was almost no likelihood that he’d end up staying another night in Vale.

With his room paid for, James was free to begin the pilgrimage across town to Emerald City Tattoos.

He got there at around ten in the morning, and was surprised to see that Qrow was outside, leaning against a car while he talked to someone through a rolled-down window.  James tried not to get in the way, but he did try to draw a little closer.

All that James wanted was not to end up interrupting Qrow.

The woman drove off and Qrow looked up. He shot James a smile and reached down into his pocket so that he could get something. Qrow pulled out a keyring and unlocked the door.

James kept his hands buried down deep into his pockets.

“You ready?” Qrow asked as he pulled the door open, just a bit. “It’s gonna be a long day.”

“Yeah.” James forced a smile. “I think I am.”

“Alright.”

Qrow nodded and gestured inside. James swallowed and stepped into the store. He found himself fidgeting as he pulled his hands out of the depths of his pockets. He sucked on the inside of his cheek as though he'd find some sort of comfort in doing so, but found none.  
  
The door swung shut behind Qrow, who was already stripping out of his jacket and exposing his tattooed arms for the world to see. James didn't know what to do- he figured that it was probably in his best interests if he just stayed out of the way while Qrow went through the morning routine of opening the store.  
  
As it turned out, that didn't take long at all. It was mostly a matter of Qrow making sure that there was money in the cash register, checking his schedule for the day, and taking a minute to clear off the front counter so that he could play along with the 'functioning business' side of things.  
  
Once Ozpin was through the door and Qrow was ready, he locked his eyes with James and let out a low chuckle. "C'mon, lets get to work."

James nodded and followed Qrow in. For the first time, he didn't make a beeline for the bed, instead deciding that it was still best for him if he just stayed out of the way while Qrow got things ready. He watched as Qrow began to adjust the table-bed into a seat- James had never noticed how many moving parts the damn thing had before.  
  
Once it was ready, Qrow gestured to the seat, and James nodded. He hesitated and went to the coat hook, where he took a moment to just slide out of the clothes that he'd worn with the sole purpose of keeping his arm hidden.  
  
As he slipped out of the jacket, James became increasingly more aware of the fact that he felt naked with his arm exposed like this. He pressed the metallic limb against his side so that he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally brushing against anything with it, and then turned to face Qrow.  
  
Qrow was leaning back in his swiveling stool that he liked to use. James tried not to notice the way that Qrow's gaze lingered on him for just a little too long- it wasn't something that he wanted to have to process on top of everything else.  
  
He already knew that he looked like a freak, and James didn't need anything to reinforce that fact.

"You didn't wear your glove." Qrow commented, absentmindedly. "Any reason?"  
  
"I-" James tried to think for a way to explain himself in a way that made sense without admitting that it was a test for himself. "I just figured that it would be better if I didn't use it."  
  
"Makes sense." Qrow turned in his seat and found the folder. He pulled it open and peered at its contents before letting his eyes slide back over to James. "Make yourself comfortable for me? It's best if I can work with you while you aren't going to need to move-"  
  
Qrow paused and pursed his lips. "Are you going to be okay to do this?"  
  
"Yeah." James murmured as he climbed up into the chair and tried to adjust his posture so that his weight wasn't distributed awkwardly. He saw a great armrest at his left side and swallowed, knowing fully well what that meant.  
  
He lifted his left arm up and set it down on the arm rest before bringing his right hand up so that he could push up what little sleeve he did up and roll it out of the way so that Qrow wouldn't have to worry about it.  
  
Qrow nodded and stepped out of the room.  
  
James closed his eyes so that he could steel himself for the little time that he didn't have Qrow right there. He didn't know where Qrow had gone or what he would be doing there, but James just knew that he needed the moment to get his composure back.  
  
_This was going to happen_ .  
  
It wasn't going to be permanent.

It was a test.

It was a chance to see whether or not he even thought that this would work on a long term basis.

Maybe it would work for now, but what Qrow put on him today would eventually fade, and then he'd have to go through the steps to make it more permanent on the whole.

If he was up to it.  
  
James felt his heart rate begin to speed up at the thought of it as a thousand insecurities and anxieties once again reared their ugly heads.  
  
Everything in him positively _screamed_ to tell him that this was going to go terribly, but despite it all, James couldn't actually bring himself to let himself believe that. This _needed_ to go well. It was crucial.  
  
Qrow came back into the room, carrying a tray that had been filled with small plastic cups that contained what looked like paints- unlikely, James knew, a roll of paper towels, and a small bowl of water.  
  
He set the tray down on the small rolling side table that James had noticed a few times.  
  
James watched as Qrow began to set everything up, and waited quietly for any sort of instructions to tell him what he had to look forward to.  
  
"So what's going to happen-" Qrow started as he moved his seat and the tray up next to where James' left arm was resting. "Is that I'm going to put on the copied stencils I made for you, and then I'm going to start on linework, the colors. We'll seal it on then we'll talk payment."  
  
James nodded and fought the urge to swallow visibly. "Alright." He murmured as he shifted slightly in the seat, just so that he could take some of the pressure off of his right hip. "Do it."  
  
Qrow smiled, and it was a smile unlike any that James had seen from Qrow thus far. It was cocky, and excited, it was the look of someone who sincerely wanted to make this happen and get things done.  
  
It was comforting.

In the end, James didn't know what he was supposed to do, so ultimately he decided that the best thing he could do would be to lie back, and go through the motions. Just because he personally didn't have even the slightest idea of what was going on, that didn't mean that Qrow didn't either.  
  
Qrow put himself to work, carefully applying the stencils that he'd made before beginning to go over the lines in black ink. James tried not to look over at Qrow too much, mostly because of the sinking feeling in his stomach that was making doing so quite difficult.  
  
He squeezed his eyes shut, tried not to look at or think about Qrow's work, and James kept himself as calm as he possibly could. Once in awhile Qrow would talk to him, though it was usually just small talk that hadn't come up between them in the past. Questions about what James did for work, hobbies, that sort of thing.  
  
James would usually just answer then return Qrow with the same question. James actually learned quite a bit about Qrow this way. For instance, he learned that Qrow loved Mexican food and lived with some old college roommates that were basically his family. He learned that Qrow had a sister- James had no siblings to speak of. He learned that both of them shared a lot of pet peeves.  
  
It was almost comforting being able to finally see Qrow as more of a person than just a thing that had been clinging to his back and making his life more difficult. And in the end, that conversation carried James through hours of Qrow's work.

By the end, James was sore- his back ached despite the fact that he was sitting, and there was a weird pain that wound down his body and into his hips that probably wouldn't be relieved so easily without taking a walk. James was also fairly certain that he was losing circulation in his left arm- his right didn't bother him.  
  
"Hey, Jim." Qrow's voice broke James out of the haze that his head had become. James blinked, almost sleepily and locked his eyes onto Qrow's rusty ones. "Get up."  
  
James tilted his head to the side slightly, but he didn't question it. He saw that Qrow had set down his tools and had gotten up, and had even walked across the room so that he could show off something to James.  
  
He stood up and clinged to the side of the bed for a moment as feeling rushed back down into his legs. Once he was sure that he would be steady, James joined Qrow on the other side of the room.  
  
Qrow opened up a cabinet to reveal a mirror of all things, and James almost had to jerk back from it out of habit. He hated mirrors, he hated them so much but-

" _Look_ ."  
  
James stepped in front of the mirror and looked at Qrow's handiwork. Sure enough, his two arms matched. James stood there for a little bit, feeling absolutely dumbstruck at the sight of his left and his right arms matching- for the most part at least. There were some things that ink would _never_ be able to achieve.  
  
The entire world seemed to stop and go quiet around James as he tried to piece together how he felt through a thousand different feelings.  
  
Some said anger- at himself, for not getting this done sooner. For not getting this done permanently. Others said fear- for what would happen when this initial feeling finally wory off. There was a feeling of relief that wanted to claw through him and tear him apart, and there was a feeling of sadness- James really didn't want to think about where _that_ one came from.  
  
He swallowed visibly and needed to raise a hand to cover his eyes, but couldn't bring himself to do so.

"Jim?" Qrow stepped closer, until he was nearly pressed against James' side. "Talk to me-"  
  
James let out a heavy breath that bordered on a sob and leaned against a wall. He couldn't bring himself to look up at Qrow or admit that he was feeling only a little more than just overwhelmed.  
  
"I'm-" James cut himself off to breathe. He needed to breathe. "It's-"  
  
"Shit." Qrow sounded worried. James became aware of the fact that Qrow had wrapped an arm around his waist and was leading him over to the bed again. James didn't protest or try to pull away- he only let Qrow lead him until he was there, and  sat down.  
  
James leaned forward and tried to hug himself, but couldn't get there. He couldn't, for fear of smudging that perfect ink. But then, he didn't have to. Qrow's arms stayed wrapped around him.  
  
Normally, James would have bolted- for fear of someone figuring out how far the damage went or figuring out just how bad things were. If Qrow found that out, James wouldn't have been surprised if it ended up with Qrow asking about further work.  
  
But Qrow didn't say anything. Instead, Qrow just hugged him and when James tilted his head so that he'd have a place to hide, Qrow didn't protest or try to push him away.  
  
James didn't know how long the two of them must have sat there like that. He knew that he probably should have stopped after a minute, but he couldn't bring himself to do that because he was just so afraid of what would come after.  
  
But Qrow was kind. Qrow didn't try to stop him, and when James was finally brave enough to pull himself away, Qrow didn't say anything weird.  
  
All he said was a simple three words that meant more than the heavens above and the earth below.  
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
James nodded.  
  
"Yeah." He forced the word out. His voice had gone hoarse, and he was so tired, but he was going to be okay. "It's just a little... overwhelming."  
  
Qrow nodded slowly in understanding. "I get that." It went quiet again. "Do you want to get something to eat? Drink?"  
  
James nodded.

The two of them both got up after a few minutes, but James didn't know where they would end up going. He didn't know most places to eat in Vale on account of the fact that he only really ever came into town for business or for things like this. And he had the feeling that Qrow probably only knew places in the mini mall, but at the same time, James was willing to take the chance and get a meal with Qrow.  
  
They took some time to get ready. Qrow needed to check that the ink on James' left arm had dried some, and James needed to steel himself to go out and get something to eat while also showing his right arm to the world, in addition to the newly inked left.  
  
After about half an hour, the two of them were ready. James pulled on his jacket, just so that he couldn't risk getting too cold- having half your body as metal meant that the cold tended to do interesting things. Qrow just threw on the first thing that looked warm that he could find, and then the two of them were out the door.  
  
James couldn't bring himself to his usual measure for comfort and didn't bother to shove his hands down into the depths of his pockets. The ink was dry, but there was still the worry that he'd somehow ruin it.  
  
"So where do you want to go?" Qrow asked, sounding entirely too lighthearted. "I know a good place... portions are ridiculous, good drinks-"

James paused. He had to wonder almost immediately whether or not the place that Qrow was talking about was some kind of bar. He had the feeling, and at the same time, James couldn't help but to wonder whether or not getting something to drink was a good idea.

He didn't know about Qrow's situation, but he knew that for himself, he would probably need to drive home that night. 

But at the same time- he knew that he could afford another night in Vale if he had to. He could just pay up for a motel room and hope that he'd be able to make it through another day in the same clothes. Though, that wasn't to say that him checking out first thing in the morning wasn't a possibility.  
  
"Yeah." James finally said, forcing a smile. "Sounds good."  
  
Qrow grinned and stretched his arms over his head, sounding almost happy about the fact that James had taken him up on the offer.  
  
"You'll love it, Jim. I mean it."

"I hope so..." James paused and had to think about something for just a second. He probably should have found out how much Qrow was going to be charging him for this...  
  
But at the same time, James didn't want to think about that. He got the feeling that despite everything, the two of them were almost friends at this point. They could go out and enjoy themselves and it wouldn't be too weird...  
  
Right?  
  
James didn't really know, but he followed Qrow. He followed Qrow into a tiny bar that was crammed between normal businesses, found a booth towards the back, and made himself comfortable under the light glow of a tv screen that was playing the news above his head- albeit silent and closed captioned.  
  
Qrow slid into the seat across from him and stretched. His red eyes travelled the bar, like he was looking for something in particular. James watched Qrow raise a hand over his head, and then a girl was there, dressed in an all-black uniform and smiling.

"Qrow!" The girl exclaimed. "I haven't seen you in a while. I was starting to worry that you wouldn't call."  
  
James raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.  
  
"I've been busy, Robbie." Qrow said with a shrug. "Mind starting us off with some drinks?"  
  
"It's Robin." The girl said, rolling her eyes and tossing her red hair back over her shoulder. She looked between Qrow and James, and then smiled. "What'll it be for you fine gentlemen this evening."  
  
"Whiskey." Qrow said with a shrug. "You know the kind I like."

"I know a lot of the things you like, Qrow." Robin retorted, almost blushing. Her eyes turned onto James, and James saw the way that they lingered on his form for just a moment too long.  
  
He moved to hide his arms, but she quickly just directed her gaze up to his face. "And for you?"  
  
"Just a beer," James mumbled. "Thank you."  
  
The waitress nodded and then she was gone, off to get their drinks. Once she was out of sight, Qrow leaned back in his seat and crossed one over the other.  
  
There was a part of James that wished that Qrow had a cigarette between two fingers because that would somehow complete the image of what Qrow should be. He tried to push that feeling back and did his best to make himself more comfortable.

"I think she likes your arms, Jimmy." Qrow chuckled as he turned his head, like he was looking for a particular television or something similar. "You shouldn't be so shy about them, they look good on you."  
  
James froze. He didn't know what to do, and his hands itched for him to get them covered in gloves so that he could just hide away again. James was about to retreat and slide his hands under the table when Qrow reached out and stopped him.  
  
"Don't." Qrow said, laughing quietly and not seeming to notice the way that James almost jolted away from his touch. "Show the world."  
  
"But-"  
  
"You want to fix things?" Qrow asked, his eyes narrowing slightly. "If you want to start getting comfortable with this stuff about yourself, then you've gotta be willing to open up let people see you as you are."  
  
Deep down, James _knew_ that Qrow was right. But at the same time, he knew that Qrow wouldn't understand what he was going through- not really. It wasn't the same thing to just have tattoos.  
  
James inhaled deeply and slid his arms forward on the table, if only slightly.

The drinks came first, then food came pretty soon after.

As the two of them enjoyed themselves there, James began to find it a little bit easier to enjoy himself and relax. It was becoming increasingly clear over the course of the night that nobody was really looking at him, and if they did, it was because Qrow had laughed too loud or made a scene.  
  
It was a comfort. James didn't know how much he'd drank that night. All he knew was that it got late, and then he and Qrow were stumbling out onto the street shoulder to shoulder and laughing the entire while.  
  
He payed for the cab that'd bring them to Qrow's apartment- he'd been offered a place to stay and James wasn't going to pass that up when he'd probably paid ridiculous amounts of money for what amounted to a temporary tattoo.  
  
The rest of the night was a blur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


	4. Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Qrow and James deal with the aftermath of some bad decisions, and start to drift together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, this chapter should have been out a while ago, but having to scrap several thousand words and also getting slowed down because of NaNoWriMo was a big thing. 
> 
> Also, thank you to anipendragon and arsenicprince for giving me the proper terminology for "traffic circle." They've saved you from regional slang hell, you guys.
> 
> The next chapter should be arriving much sooner. 
> 
> Hope you all like it, and I'm sorry for the wait!

Images and sensations fluttered behind Qrow's eyes and over his skin.  
  
James' face, flushed as he pulled off his shirt for the first time.  
  
Cool metal under his lips.  
  
Hands travelling up and down his sides, one cool and the other warm before settling on his hips.  
  
A kiss.  
  
A sigh.  
  
The slow press of something inside of him.  
  
Ecstasy.

Exhaustion.

Rest.  
  
Qrow woke up feeling more than just a bit groggy. His head didn't throb as badly as he'd thought it would, but he was definitely thirsty. He was warm, for the most part. His head was resting on what felt like someone's arm and he was wrapped up in someone else’s scent.

They smelled like a mix of metal, pine, and sex.    
  
When Qrow finally opened his eyes, he saw that he was lying in his own bed, pressed up against James, who looked content and comfortable. Qrow shifted slightly and tried to pick his head up to figure out what time it was. He wasn't concerned with the fact that he'd gone through a one night stand.  
  
He was mostly just worried about what time it was and when he was going to be able to get something to eat that morning. And a glass of water or two.

Mostly it was food that sounded really good.  
  
Qrow didn't move though, not too much. He didn’t want to end up waking James.

He took advantage of the chance to get a good look at the man that he'd spend the night before with. Previously, he'd only gotten used to the fact that he and James had a client and worker relationship, but now that had clearly changed.  
  
Qrow didn't know whether it was going to be for better or for worst.  
  
But like this, wrapped up in the blankets and resting- it might have been the most comfortable that Qrow had ever seen James. The night before had come with its moments of awkwardness. Moments of pausing and having to collect themselves. There had been drunken kisses and whines.  
  
But it had been _nice_ .  
  
It had been comfortable.  
  
Qrow sank back down into the bed and pressed himself against James. He let his eyes flick shut and nuzzled into James' shoulder. He felt an arm wrap around his waist and smiled slightly at the feeling.  
  
"Qrow?" James asked. His voice was ragged from the night before, and he sounded exhausted.  
  
"Yeah, Jim?" Qrow replied, hoping that this wasn't going to be as awkward as he thought it was going to be. He knew what he expected from this- he knew how James tended to be. In all likelihood, James was probably going to try and turn and run, and then Qrow would never see him again.  
  
Or it would be at least three months before he saw James again.  
  
"Can I get up?"  
  
Shit, there it was.  
  
James was going to take the chance to slip out the door, and then he was going to run.  
  
Qrow felt a little bit queasy thinking about that possibility. Especially after the night that they'd spent together.  
  
"Yeah," Qrow managed, though the sound was a little too stiff for his liking. He knew that he had to sound like he was probably scared, but he couldn't really do anything to help it.

He sat up and watched as James shifted. The first thing that Qrow noticed was that James' motions were much stiffer than they should have been. He thought back to their conversation at the riverside a few days before- James used painkillers, he remembered.  
  
Qrow felt a pang of guilt at the realization that he might have separated James from something that he needed to be able to get by.  
  
James sat up and the sheets pooled around his waist. Qrow couldn't help but to stare, his eyes flitting over the metal that made up his right side and the web of scar tissue that stretched across to James' left.  
  
The night before, it had been a cause for pause. James had needed separation from the fact that all of that was there- and Qrow had done his best to give it.  
  
But the night before things had been _different_ . The two of them had been drunk, things were very different now that they were sober. Reservations were going to be back in place that hadn't been there before.  
  
He tried to take in what he could of James as he waited though. Qrow found himself gripping the blankets in front of him a little bit harder than he should have, but he didn't care.  
  
He watched James rise, and traced his eyes over every line of his body. At first, it barely even registered in Qrow's mind that the silvery parts of James' left side were his own handiwork instead of yet another prosthesis.  
  
"Qrow?" James asked, quietly as he tried to pull on a pair of pants out of Qrow's line of sight- not really possible, but James seemed to be making as valiant of an effort as he could manage.  
  
"Yeah, Jim?" Qrow asked, letting his eyes flit up to James' face now. He knew that things were bad. He was going to end up making them worse- Qrow just had that feeling.  
  
James' voice was hoarse, and the look of worry on his face was so clear that it was enough to make Qrow's heart shoot straight down to his stomach instead of staying somewhere reasonable.  
  
"Have you..." James started and stopped, crossing his arms over his chest in a weak attempt to hide what he looked like from Qrow. Qrow watched as James swallowed audibly before managing to speak up again. "Have you seen my shirt?"  
  
Qrow blinked and let his mouth drop open a little bit before he cast a quick glance around the room in search of the shirt that had been abandoned the night before. He figured that the least that he could do was get up and try to help.  
  
He peeled himself out of the bed and didn't even bother with the blankets that he'd been tangled up in. He didn't care whether James saw him nude, really. Not with the night before being held in consideration.  
  
"Uh, lemme look." Qrow muttered as he stumbled around the room. He could feel James' eyes on him, just the same way that his gaze had been completely glued to James earlier. He figured that he probably deserved to be stared at.  
  
Qrow stood up and scratched at the scruff on his chest as he looked around for things that were very obviously not his. Normally this sort of thing was easy. He wasn't the type to wear thongs or bras or heavy sweaters. Normally his one night stands and him didn't wear the same stuff and it was never an issue.  
  
His eyes fell on a sweater and Qrow bent over to pick it up. When he turned with it in his hand he realized that James' face was completely pale, his eyes glued to-  
  
Qrow looked down at himself for the first time that morning to see that there were light purple bruises that had formed on his hips. No doubt from being gripped a little too tightly.  
  
"Is this it?" Qrow asked, hoping that it would be enough of a distraction for James.

James nodded stiffly and stepped forward, reaching out with his newly inked arm to take the shirt. Qrow and his fingers brushed for just a second, and there was a part of Qrow- a fairly significant one at that, which wanted to make the contact last forever.  
  
But that wasn't possible.  
  
James pulled the shirt on and turned away from Qrow, putting his hands on the back of his head before inhaling deeply and exhaling audibly. From where he was standing, Qrow could see every drop of tension that filled James' body.  
  
This was bad.  
  
This was potentially very, _very_ bad.  
  
"Jim?" Qrow asked, hoping that he'd be able to figure out what was going on. At the worst he'd be able to put together a patch job for the situation that would at least keep James from running. Maybe if he offered the guy a shower and breakfast...  
  
James looked back at Qrow over his shoulder, and there was a certain pain in his gaze that Qrow found himself getting caught up in. This wasn't what he wanted, but at the same time... it was probably the only hope that he had.  
  
"Yes?" James' voice was impossibly low, in both the volume and the tone.  
  
"Do you..." Qrow looked around the room as he tried to figure out what would be the best thing that he could suggest to fix this. Shower, probably. If he could give James a chance to wash himself of any evidence from the night before, then that was something. "Do you want a shower or something, because I don't mind if you stick around..."  
  
James turned and actually faced Qrow now. There was something in those blue eyes that was impossible to read. Qrow hoped that he'd never have to see that look again.  
  
"I'd like a shower but..." James paused, still hugging himself as much as he could. "I've been in the same stuff for a few days now. Is it possible that you could see about washing my clothes while I-"  
  
Qrow blinked at the request. He knew that the good thing for him to do would be to just suck it up and find a way to get James something clean to wear, since washing the guy's clothes was bound to take much longer than a shower would. He cast a quick glance around his bedroom, trying to figure out whether he had anything that might fit James- unlikely.  
  
The guy was only a full five inches taller than him and broad. Qrow was a twig. He was well aware of his status as a twig.  
  
But while he himself may not have anything that he could lend James, Qrow could think of someone who would. He looked at the door over his shoulder and sucked in a breath before finally responding.  
  
"I'll show you to the bathroom. I might be able to get something clean for you to wear off of Tai."  
  
"Tai?" James asked, squinting in Qrow's direction.  
  
Qrow just shrugged. "Housemate. Don't worry about him, he's usually good." He went to the door and set one hand on the knob, hoping that he'd be able to assuage some of James' concerns.  
  
James cast him a fleeting worried look, and Qrow did everything that he could not to notice or let himself get bogged down in what it could mean too deeply. The best thing that he could have hoped for was that James wasn't running.  
  
Yet.  
  
Qrow partially expected that as soon as the guy was cleaned up and had clean clothes he was going to bolt.  
  
Not that he'd blame James. Waking up in a functional stranger's bed in a city that you aren't as familiar with as you could be was never a good thing.  
  
Especially when it was just a one night stand.  
  
Qrow pulled the door open, and he could hear James' quiet sigh behind him as he stepped out into the hallway that would lead them past Taiyang and Summer's room and to the bathroom.  
  
He checked that James was with him- he was. And then the two of them were off, walking as quietly as they could until the two of them were crossing through the living room.  
  
Qrow was broke out of his concentration by the sound of Summer's voice.  
  
"Pay up, Tai!" She snickered. Qrow looked over and found that she was sitting cross-legged on the couch while Taiyang sat on the floor in front of the coffee table with a bowl of cereal.  
  
"Later." Taiyang answered, tilting his head back so that he could look up into Summer's eyes.  
  
Qrow rolled his eyes and looked back at James, who looked like he had almost completely frozen in place. Out of the corner of his eye, Qrow could see James' left arm move to clutch at his right, and that was the first sign of a red alert to Qrow.  
  
He had to get James away from Summer and Tai if he didn't want for James to just bolt as soon as he possibly could.

He couldn't let this stop him. Qrow puffed his chest out as much as he could to show that he wasn't intimidated at all and crossed the rest of the way through the living room to pull open the bathroom door. James picked up on it and soon followed after Qrow before stepping into the bathroom and pulling the door shut wordlessly.  
  
Not good. It wasn't good at all.  
  
Qrow tried not to focus on James. Surely in a few minutes he would hear the water click on and then that would be the end of it for the most part. He still was going to have to be able to procure clothing for James- and now that James was so wholly embarrassed, Qrow had the feeling that little task may have just gotten a bit easier.  
  
Back in the living room, SUmmer and Taiyang had already fallen back into the rhythms of their conversation, and Qrow was more than happy to go ahead and interrupt them. He stepped into the room and flopped down onto the couch between them because he knew the best way for him to catch their attention would be to be a nuisance.  
  
"Not. Cool." Qrow said harshly, looking between his two roommates. Once he heard the water beginning to run, he knew that it meant he could rest a little bit easier. He could be as harsh with Summer and Taiyang as he wanted, for the most part.  
  
"Something wrong?" Taiyang asked, grinning widely as though he'd just told one of his bad jokes. "You don't usually-"  
  
"You two didn't exactly leave a good impression." Qrow almost snarled the words out. He turned to face Taiyang. "He's using our washing machine, and he needs clothes. Give."  
  
Taiyang's mouth opened up just a little bit as he tried to figure out whether there was something that he wanted to go ahead and say, but then it closed once the realization of the severity of the situation dawned. The blonde gave a wordless nod, and then he was up and hurrying off to his and Summer's room.  
  
Qrow just shot Summer a disapproving look before following after Taiyang. He figured at this point he probably had a better grasp on what sorts of clothes James would need than Taiyang would. He stepped into the room to see that Taiyang was hurrying through his dresser looking for something.  
  
"Pajama pants and a shirt will probably be good." Qrow said. He saw the way that Tai went rigid, and then shot him a grin before seeking out a pair of red flannel pants and a t-shirt. Qrow had to pause for a moment. He wasn't actually sure whether James would be okay with a t-shirt, all things considered.  
  
A tattoo on his left arm wasn't enough to necessarily hide the fact that there was nothing organic about his right. Qrow knew that. And clearly, James' insecurities weren't about to dissipate that easily.  
  
Which Qrow understood. They hadn't even carried out a proper solution yet.

In the end, it looked like it was all going to boil down to a waiting game. He was going to have to just sit, and he was going to wait for James to get out of the shower, and it was all going to be him just _hoping_ that the guy wasn't going to bolt as soon as he had clean clothes.  
  
But for now, Qrow did have clean clothes for James. He knew that they probably weren't as good as they could have been, and considering what he'd learned the night before, Qrow was willing to bed that the length of the pant legs was going to be an issue.  
  
It was the best he had.  
  
The best he could hope for.  
  
Qrow took a moment to collect the clothing that Taiyang had given him before slipping out of Taiyang and Summer's room so that he could get to the bathroom.  
  
He approached the bathroom door quietly, and hesitated for a much longer moment than was probably justified in a normal situation before he knocked on the door.  
  
The sound of the water's spray was still going, so clearly James hadn't gotten out of the shower yet.  
  
"Yes?" James called, just loud enough to be heard over the sound of the water.  
  
"I got you clothes." Qrow called back through the door, making his best effort to match James' volume the entire time. "Want me to bring them in?"  
  
There was a moment of hesitation. He heard the spray get turned off, then the sound of the glass door of the standing shower being opened. There was a bit of a wait, and he could hear the sound of James walking on the other side.  
  
He tried to ignore the fact that the footfalls that he could hear on the other side of the door were uneven. They were footfalls that belonged to a man who had been split in two.  
  
One natural, albeit heavy.  
  
The other distinctly metallic.  
  
The door opened, and Qrow saw James' right hand reach out. He didn't say anything about it, instead opting to just put the bundle of clothes he'd been given in James' hand.  
  
"I'll uh... You like bacon?" Qrow asked before James could close the door. Even without seeing the guy's face, Qrow was able to imagine what James looked like right now. Probably absolutely befuddled by the question.  
  
Not that Qrow would blame him for it.    
  
"I..." James hesitated. "Yes."  
  
The door closed. Qrow figured that was probably the best that he could really hope for. He took a step away from the bathroom door and made a beeline for the kitchen.  
  
Of all the things that he could do to try and make his one night stand comfortable, the least that he could do was make the guy breakfast.  
  
Besides, James looked like he was living in a sort of half-panic anyways.  
  
Maybe getting something to eat would do something to calm his nerves until his clothes were washed and James could actually leave for the day.  
  
Maybe.

He figured that the least he could do was give it a try and hope for the best.  
  
Qrow wound his way back through the apartment and into the kitchen where he immediately began to raid the fridge and pantry in hopes of finding something that he could make in addition to the bacon that he was sure hadn't been touched.  
  
A quick check affirmed to him that the bacon was still there. A carton of eggs and a loaf of bread in the fridge was enough to tell him that he did actually have some idea as to what he could make for breakfast that morning.  
  
Instead of standing around and waiting for James to get out of the shower, Qrow just figured the best course of action was to start cooking now so that he'd be able to offer food as immediately as the guy stepped into the kitchen.  
  
Besides, he had a feeling that the two of them were going to need to talk about the night before sooner than later.  
  
When he actually thought about it, the entire last few days had been somewhat chaotic- not necessarily for him, Qrow was getting through it all relatively unscathed.  
  
The man that was currently occupying his shower though....  
  
Qrow heard the sound of the water turning off distantly.  
  
He tried not to focus on that, instead opting to put some slices of bread into the toaster oven in hopes that he could have something ready while the bacon cooked. He was going to need to know how James liked his eggs anyways.  
  
The bathroom door opened. Qrow closed the door on the toaster oven before poking out of the kitchen so that he could flag down James. He was going to have to show James the way to the washing machine, Qrow thought.  
  
But James joined him in the kitchen. He opened his mouth to say something to Qrow, but Qrow just ended up raising a hand to silence him. "Washing machine's just down the hall, behind the sliding doors."  
  
James blinked and then nodded, rushing off to put what he did have into the wash while Qrow focused on flipping the bacon. He returned a few minutes later, looking a little too awkward. James just stepped into the kitchen and found a seat at the small table that was tucked into the corner.  
  
And now it was time that they probably were going to have to actually talk about it. Qrow looked back over his shoulder and opened his mouth to speak up. "How do you like your eggs?"  
  
"Over hard is good." James said, his voice sounding a little too quiet. That didn't leave Qrow feeling very confident. He just nodded and got a second pan so that he could make James something to eat.  
  
It didn't take a long time, but they were painfully silent the entire time that Qrow cooked. He figured once they both had food they were going to go back to the bedroom so that they could eat without risking being overheard or interrupted.

Qrow just did his best to keep the both of them comfortable though. He made two plates of food- one with eggs over hard, and the other just scrambled because he didn't tend to be picky with his food anyways, and then offered one to James after he crossed the kitchen halfway.  
  
James didn't say anything, though he looked almost like he was ashamed of himself. Qrow waited for a moment, but James did get up and take the plate. Qrow grabbed a pair of forks, and then led the way back to the bedroom where he and James had spent the night before wrapped up in each other.  
  
He just hoped that now that they had food and were going to be able to talk about what had happened, things would be fine.  
  
In the back of his mind, everything still told him that James was liable to bolt as soon as he got a chance. Not that Qrow could blame the guy- there had been a lot of drinks going around the night before and he wouldn't have been surprised if James was still trying to put together the pieces of what had happened the night before.  
  
Qrow had managed to put it together pretty cleanly in his head.  
  
He closed the door behind the two of them as James crossed the room to sit awkwardly on the edge of the bed with his plate in hand. Qrow walked across and seated himself down next to James.  
  
He just needed to hope that he could break any ice that had formed between the two of them over the course of the morning. If Qrow could just think of anything that he could say to maybe relieve how things were at the moment, that would have been a lot- it would have made a big difference.  
  
But he mostly just found himself at a loss for words as he tried to piece together something that he could offer to James as a small comfort.  
  
Finally, something came to mind.  
  
"Are you alright?" Qrow asked, watching at the way that James mostly just poked at the eggs with his fork. Part of him wondered whether he was just a bad cook or whether it was a sign of James' nerves all coming up.  
  
James didn't look at Qrow, just continued poking at those eggs like it was the only distraction that the world could offer him in that moment.  
  
That wasn't to say that Qrow could really blame the guy for it though. It had been a rough morning for both of them.  
  
"I don't know." James mumbled finally. "I just mostly can't figure out why you still want me around."  
  
Qrow was absolutely shocked by that. He thought back to the night before, and how nervous James had been when the two of them had fallen into bed together.  
  
He remembered how vehemently James had tried to hide his robotic right side before the tattoo had been done- all of the nerves that he'd tried to talk James through.  
  
It had been why James ran, Qrow remembered bitterly.

But it had the potential to be a little bit different now. He just had to start by being sure to give James a good answer to his question that wouldn't end up accidentally offending the guy and giving him more reasons for him to run. Qrow was pretty sure that he could pull that off, he just had to be careful.  
  
Really careful.  
  
He just ended up cocking his head and shifting his body so that he could face James in a bit more of a head-on fashion instead of awkwardly sitting side by side with James. "Why wouldn't I want you around?" He paused for a moment as he wondered whether what he wanted to follow that up with would be a bit too much. "I had fun last night, Jim."  
  
"It..." James started to give a response to Qrow but couldn't seem to help the fact that he needed a moment to just hesitate and sort his thoughts out before he kept going. 'I suppose last night was fun, but..." James let out an impossibly heavy sigh and shook his head, trying to put things together even still.  "I just don't get why you didn't run. Or call me a cab or make me go home."  
  
Qrow blinked, knowing fully well at this point what this was about. There wasn't really any getting around what the issue actually was. "I... I really don't mind them, Jim." Qrow said, finally bringing up the prosthetics in some capacity for the first time that morning. "When you came into the shop and you explained what was going on, I figured that it was stuff that made you uncomfortable but..." He stopped himself, weighing his words carefully.  
  
"But they're a part of you, aren't they?" He caught the way that James froze at those words, and the way that James' breath seemed to hitch in his throat as he realized that things weren't quite as they had originally seemed. "If I think you look good, then why wouldn't I...?"  
  
Qrow didn't go as far as to try and finish. He was sure that he'd said enough.  
  
"This was inappropriate." James said, his voice entirely too hard when he spoke. It was James running from him, Qrow realized quickly. It just wasn't physical, but rather mental. It was James putting up a wall between them that Qrow wasn't sure he'd be able to gap.  
  
But he could try, dammit.  
  
"Yeah," Qrow said, shrugging and leaning back in his seat slightly. "But here's the thing about my line of work-" He set down his fork and the plate he had in his hands on the end table beside him where it was all out of the way. "People don't really care if a tattoo artist sleeps with a client. We aren't exactly the office building types that you're used to."  
  
James looked like he was about to protest, but Qrow decided not to give him a chance. "I don't care, Jimmy. Really. I had fun, and you looked good." There was James preparing to protest again.  
  
Qrow cut him off.  
  
"I mean it, Jim. They don't take away from anything in my opinion."

Qrow watched James' face for anything that could tip him off to how the other guy was feeling at the moment. He didn't know what he was expecting. Anger, maybe. Disgust. Disbelief.  
  
Surprise hadn't really been on the list of things that he'd been expecting. It wasn't very explicit. It was all told in small things, the way that James' blue eyes widened a little bit too much, and the way that he stopped being able to bring himself to poke at and play with his food as he sat there in discomfort. The bob of James' Adam's Apple when he swallowed down his nerves.  
  
It wasn't much, Qrow knew that. But the least that he could do was hope that he was making his way into James' world, slowly but surely, Slowly, he reached over and placed his hand on top of James' free hand.  
  
It was cold, and metallic. The only thing that could have told Qrow that it was the prosthetic of James' right side was the fact that fingers looked a little bit too slender around the joints.  
  
Qrow couldn't help but wonder how clearly James could feel his hand. He wondered whether James could feel warmth, or the slow stroke of Qrow's thumb over the back of his hand. He expected for James to pull away, but he didn't.  
  
For just that moment, things felt like they were going to be okay.  
  
"I'll take Summer's car and drive you up to the parking garage once your stuff is done washing." Qrow said, keeping his voice level. "Just… when you go, promise me that you won't just disappear like last time?"  
  
"Qrow-"  
  
"I mean it, Jimmy." Qrow answered. "I actually kind of like having you around and if that-" He gestured mutely towards James' left hand. "If that helps you at all, I want to know about it and be there to make it a permanent change when the time comes for that."  
  
James stared deep into Qrow's eyes, so deep that Qrow almost felt naked because of it. He just decided that it was best if he just swallowed down his nerves and continued the contact that the exist between the two of them.  
  
Part of him knew that the only way that he and James were going to get this again would be if something happened again. Drinks and a stumbling walk home. Exhausted kisses. Something like that.  
  
"Jim?"  
  
James didn't say anything to Qrow, and there was some small part of him that was grateful for it. He just nodded mutely and pulled his hand away from Qrow's. Qrow watched as James turned his attention back to his meal.  
  
"Okay." James finally whispered, his eyes flicking back over to Qrow for just a second before James made a point to finish his meal and go off to make sure that his clothing made it into the dryer.  
  
They sat and watched a movie quietly until it was finally time to leave.  
  
When Qrow dropped James off at the parking garage, he watched as James walked away in an incredibly stiff manner.  
  
The man disappeared into the garage's depths.  
  
Qrow forced himself to drive back home.

 

* * *

 

Qrow didn't return home immediately after dropping James off.

With everything that had gone on that day Qrow wasn't so sure that going back to the apartment where Summer and Taiyang would surely be waiting to tease him was such a good idea. He just wanted to stay out for a while and clear his mind.  
  
In the end he just ended up driving around Vale for some time- not to any place in particular. If there was somewhere that he needed to be, he could get there in time. But for now, he was just mostly looking for some peace of mind.  
  
He should have known better than to let his instincts drive him out to Vale's Higanbana District.  
  
Normally, it was a pretty good place to drink. Normal people with nice bars, and good people that didn't judge when you came through the door.  
  
But when Qrow parked his car outside of a particular bar, he knew _exactly_ what was going to happen.  
  
First, he was going to walk through the door and get greeted by the pretty waitress. Her name might have been Coral. Or Cotta. Terra maybe. The girl’s name didn’t matter, and Qrow almost felt bad about that considering the number of times he’d flirted with her. He’d even taken her home once.

But he wasn’t there for a cute waitress.  
  
He'd make his way to the back and sit down at the bar, and he'd send a text to his sister. They always met out here when one needed the other. It was just easiest that way.  
  
Raven would show up, she'd sit down next to him, and then it'd be dodging each other with small talk until they got heavy all at once.  
  
The routine was only _slightly_ exhausting.  
  
He pulled up in front of the bar in question and parked Summer's car. Qrow just sat there for a minute, questioning whether this was something that he actually wanted to do. Was it worth the headache? As Qrow got out of the car, he decided that it probably was. When it came to dealing with people who had a habit of running, the best people to go to were people with a habit of running.  
  
Qrow didn't expect to ever hear from James again. Raven had left both Taiyang and Summer wondering if they'd ever hear from her again.  
  
In the end, she'd probably come back to Tai and Summer as she always did- needing something and crawling into their bed for a while and then leaving when it suited her best. She didn't attach to people like most did. Nobody blamed her for it.  
  
Qrow definitely didn't.  
  
He made his way to the back of the bar, doing his best to ignore the waitress' flirtations along the way. He just asked for two glasses of whiskey- bottom shelf as he usually did.  
  
He _knew_ she'd give him top. She wouldn’t charge extra for it either.  
  
Neither him nor Raven would mind.  
  
But he took his seat at the back and sent off a text message to Raven. She wouldn't leave him waiting. She never did and she never had.  
  
The drinks came and eventually so did Raven.  
  
Of the two of them, Raven had always been the imposing one. While Qrow was always on the scrawny side, she'd ended up as a formidable figure. Intimidating- at least to the ones that didn't know her.  
  
And even then…  
  
"Hello, brother." Raven said, smiling down at him before slipping into the seat across from him and picking up her glass of whiskey. "You needed me?"  
  
"Raven." Qrow answered, balancing his glass between his fingers and staring into its depths instead of up at Raven. "Needed someone to talk to that's not-"  
  
He didn't finish the sentence.  
  
Raven knew well enough to fill in the blanks. She always did.

"Of course." Raven seemed to scowl through the words, in a way that was enough to make Qrow really question why he'd decided that she was who he'd needed to spend his time with. She was his sister though. No amount of weirdness would ever be enough to negate that fact.  
  
She crossed one leg over the other as she leaned back in her seat and looked down at the glass that Qrow had ordered her. "So you decided _I_ was the one to come to?"  
  
"I couldn't think of anyone else." Qrow answered, though he knew that it probably sounded a little bit more awkward than it should have. "Figured you wouldn't mind talking too much."  
  
"So this isn't just an attempt to catch up then?"  
  
"Nah." Qrow sipped from his glass of whiskey and smiled at Raven, though it was slight. "I needed your advice on something."  
  
"Really now?"  
  
Qrow hesitated, trying to piece together what the best way to breach the topic of relationship advice would be. If it was something where he was _actually_ dating James, that would have been one thing. But as things stood, he and James were nothing more than a simple one night stand that was going to get in the way.  
  
A lot.  
  
"Yeah." Qrow finally said, though he kept his voice as level as he could manage it. This was a meeting with Raven- getting emotional wouldn't end well for either of them. "I met someone."  
  
Raven tilted her head slightly and raised an eyebrow, seemingly unable to believe Qrow. "So you came to me?"  
  
"Yeah." Qrow answered, this time with a little bit of a growl in his voice. "I needed to know what I should do if-" He hesitated, knowing that he was treading dangerously close to being left alone.  
  
"If?"  
  
He sucked in a breath and followed it up with a heavy sigh. "If the person has a habit of running."  
  
Qrow watched Raven's hand- he saw the way that her grip tightened on her glass and the way that she seemed to go completely rigid in her seat. "Okay then." Raven said, with a bit of a snarl of her own added to her intonation. "Did you _actually_ meet someone, or did Taiyang put you up to this?"  
  
"Taiyang didn't put me up to nothing." Qrow answered, leaning across the table to meet Raven's eyes. His eyes. "I'm serious."  
  
Raven's eyes narrowed and she leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest. "You just deal with it." She answered, though it was more snappish in tone that she probably intended.  
  
At least, that was what Qrow hoped.  
  
"Let me guess," Qrow started, staring down into his drink again and swirling the glass in his hand. The amber liquid inside almost looked like it created a tiny whirlpool of sorts. "You're going to tell me I should have gone to Tai."  
  
"No." Raven answered. "I'm going to tell you that you're a fool for getting involved."  
  
"So what's that say about-" Qrow started.  
  
Stopped.  
  
Banned territory.

Qrow stopped himself before he could go any further. He knew just as well as Raven did that neither of them wanted to end up treading into the waters that would leave them angry and ready to come to blows. they'd been there too many times before. He just inhaled deeply and let his eyes slip shut before leaning back in his seat and crossing one leg over the other.  
  
"I don't know what's going on with this one, Raven." His eyes reopened, though it was slow. Their gazes met. "He's not like most people."  
  
She was quiet. "Neither am I." Pause. "Neither are you."  
  
"I know." Qrow mumbled. "I've just been screwing up left and right and I'm kind of tired of it, Rae."  
  
Raven nodded, expression pensieve. "How'd you meet him?"  
  
"Work."  
  
She let out a small noise that was somewhat akin to a chuckle. "Of course." Qrow watched as she finished off her drink. "Have you tried talking to him?"  
  
Qrow couldn't hide the way that he went stiff at those words. He knew that Raven noticed it, too. There was no getting around the fact that she'd noticed.  
  
"He basically bolted as soon as he got the chance." He finally answered, biting back the desire to go ahead and ask Raven the same question. She wouldn't answer. It was a waste of time. "I dunno if I was just that bad or..."  
  
"Just talk to him." Raven deadpanned. "And be honest with him. I know, we're Branwens. Honesty-"  
  
"-is a virtue."  
  
" _Isn't what we do."_ Raven stood up, fixing her clothes and taking a moment to stretch. She took the first few steps past him, even letting the tips of her fingers brush against his shoulder as she passed him. "I'll see you around, little brother."  
  
He nodded.  
  
He knew that she wasn't lying. She'd be around when it suited her. If it suited her.  
  
It probably wouldn't.  
  
"Thanks, Raven." He managed as she walked out of his peripheral vision.  
  
Qrow didn't need much to realize his loneliness once she was gone. The booth was too empty, his glass too empty as well.  
  
That wouldn't do.  
  
He forced himself to drain the rest of the drink before he got up and went to pay for the drinks he'd ordered. He was pretty sure that he'd be good to drive after just one, but he'd have to be careful.  
  
Tolerance only went so far, after all.  
  
Somehow, he managed to drive back home instead of sticking around for any longer than he needed to.  
  
He'd have to take Raven up on her 'advice' whether he liked it or not. Qrow knew that- if James was actually feeling slightly more confident with the temporary tattoo, then it was entirely too likely that he was going to want it made permanent.  
  
Qrow decided then that he would try to call James in a few days- not do the pestering thing that he'd done before.

It was just a matter of whether James was willing to pick up the phone or not.

 

* * *

 

That Thursday, Qrow sat in his room at the parlor, waiting for something, _anything_ to do. It was late in the evening- late enough that he knew that he wasn't going to be seeing any more clients. In the other room he could hear Ozpin milling about and doing whatever it was that Ozpin did.  
  
Somehow, after the talk with Raven, he hadn't exactly been able to steel himself enough to go ahead and get into contact with James again.  
  
He leaned back in his seat as far as he could and stared at the phone on his desk. It would be easy. All that he had to do was pick up the phone and dial James' number, and then that would be it. Either the guy would pick up, or he would ignore Qrow again for another three months straight.  
  
Qrow shook his head and let his gaze flick up to the clock on the far side of the room.  
  
It was almost eight.  
  
In theory, James would be out of work or whatever it was that he did during the days.  
  
Qrow sucked in a deep breath and leaned forward to grab the phone before leaning back in his seat with it in hand.  
  
It was too easy to do this.  
  
It was too easy to fix things again.  
  
It was too easy to fuck things up again.  
  
Qrow steeled himself and let out a heavy sigh before he finally began to dial in the number that belonged to James that he'd been given so that he could contact the guy. He just had to hope that nothing was going to get in the way and hope that James picked up the phone when it was time.  
  
This was it. This was happening.  
  
He held the phone to his ear and listened for the rings that would tell him that his call was going through.  
  
One ring.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Two rings.  
  
" _Ironwood_ ."  
  
Qrow blinked, a little bit surprised that James had actually picked up for him. "Hey, Jim." He said, trying to sound as calm as he could. He figured that once James realized who he was talking to, the guy was probably going to end up hanging up in favor of something else.  
  
"Qrow?" James asked, almost sounding like he was a little bit afraid of what would come next. "What is it?"  
  
Feeling a little bit better about the call, Qrow decided that the best thing that he could do was just roll with the conversation and hope that it wasn't too weird. Hope that James didn't just end up hanging up on him.  
  
"I wanted to check in on you is all." Qrow began to explain himself as calmly as he possibly could. He closed his eyes and decided to continue. "How are you doing with the arm?"  
  
On the other end of the phone Qrow could almost imagine the way that James' face looked. That look of nervousness that seemed to flash over his expression every time that something uncomfortable got brought up. If he was there, he was sure that he would have gone ahead and given James whatever small comforts that he could have managed.  
  
James would probably still go ahead and try to shy away from those comforts.  
  
"It's uh, it's something." James said. "I still can't quite bring myself to..."  
  
"To?"  
  
"It's weird." James cut himself off before he could sound like he was any more uncomfortable than he already was. "I still have trouble looking at it as me, and the other arm it-"  
  
"Is the ink holding up?" Qrow turned in his seat, using its swivel so that he could feel comfortable as he faced towards the window that gave him a small view of the world outside.  
  
"I-." James cut himself off. "Yes, yes it is."  
  
"Alright." Qrow said, quietly. "Do you think you want to go through with getting the final job done?"  
  
There was a pause and Qrow realized that it was entirely possible that he'd made a mistake in what he was doing. "Look, if you don't think it's helping, you don't have to say yes."  
  
"I'm fine." James answered. "I figure it might be best if you and I didn’t see each other after..."  
  
Qrow frowned. He'd figured that was going to get brought up at some point. There was no way that he didn't run into it trouble regarding that night that he and James had enjoyed. He was pretty sure that on the level of work, Qrow had nothing to worry about.  
  
Everything that he had to worry about was purely personal.  
  
"I don't regret it." Qrow cut James off before the guy could get any more awkward over the phone. "I meant it the first time that I told you."  
  
"You say that now." James said with what sounded like a quiet sigh. "Look..."  
  
"Look, if you want to come in and get the tattoo done and never talk to me again, that's fine." Qrow grimaced as he crossed one leg over the other where he sat. This wasn't going to be easy to deal with, no matter how it got looked at. "But if being around me isn't too painful, I'd like to be around."  
  
"Qrow?"  
  
"You're a good guy, Jim." Qrow explained himself. "And I figure that the least that I can do is help you out in what ways I can. So the arm-"  
  
"The colors have stayed fairly well." James answered. "I just don't know if it's something that I want to keep."  
  
"Have you been able to-"  
  
"I've been able to go out with it exposed, but it's not that easy. There's still a lot of... nerves."  
  
"Well, that wasn't going to go away overnight, right?" Qrow answered. "There's no shame in it."

The other end of the line was too quiet, and it left Qrow feeling like there was an uncomfortable churning in his stomach. It was too easy for him to put together the pieces that told him that he'd probably gone ahead and said something that he shouldn't have. Qrow chewed his lower lip, and eventually when he was feeling like he could, he spoke up. "Jim?"  
  
"Qrow, what are you trying to do?" James sounded less than confident, and Qrow couldn't really be surprised by that. "Is there something that you need other than to check how the tattoo is doing?"  
  
"I wanted to know how you were holding up." Qrow said, and not a word of it was a lie. "The last time that we saw each other wasn't exactly great and I wanted to apologize if anything made you uncomfortable."  
  
"Thank you." James said, quietly. Qrow could hear James moving around, like he was getting out of a car and getting something out of the back seat. "Look, I'll call you when the tattoo starts to fade, okay?"  
  
Qrow bit his lower lip. That was probably the best that he could get in this situation, he figured.  
  
"Yeah." Qrow answered, quietly. "Sounds good."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"Take care, Jim."  
  
"You too, Qrow."  
  
James hung up and Qrow was left to his own devices once again, feeling a little bit less than sure about what he actually wanted to do now that he'd spoken to James. It seemed like there weren't any particularly hard feelings between the two of them, just James being his normal awkward self.  
  
He looked up at the calendar in front of him and searched it for empty days. He could get James in any day if he wanted to, it was just a matter of whether James would actually call him back to schedule an appointment or not.  
  
Qrow didn't want to think about whether James would go back to avoiding him as he had had before. All that he knew was that it was the absolute last thing that he wanted to have to think or worry about when it came to James.  
  
Oh well.  
  
He'd hear from James sooner than later, he hoped.  
  
He figured.  
  
Whichever came first.

 

* * *

 

Qrow floated through the next few days without much on his mind. He'd put everything that he could into not worrying about whatever it was that was going on between him and James, and somehow, it had been something where he'd actually managed to stick to it.  
  
The void was filled in a lot of ways. Video games with Taiyang, eating dinner with Summer, and even popping in to visit with Raven whenever he got a chance. Work was easy, and aside from some residual nerves, Qrow was mostly fine.  
  
That broke on Sunday night when his phone rang as he was about to crawl into bed.  
  
Qrow let out a loud groan and reached over for his phone, turning it so that he could look at the screen that looked like it was far too brightly lit.  
  
James.  
  
He forced himself up into a proper sitting position and accepted the call, immediately pressing the phone to his ear.  
  
"Jim?" Qrow asked, staring at a blank spot on the wall ahead of him. The first thing that he realized was that it sounded like James was in a car, possibly stuck in traffic somewhere. "What's up?"  
  
"Hey Qrow." James said, quietly. "I wanted to ask you if you wanted to..." The man hesitated, and Qrow could almost hear a heavy sigh escape James like he'd gotten used to. "I'm stuck in Vale for a few nights for work, and I wanted to know if you wanted to get some drinks or something while I'm here. We could talk about-"  
  
"Uh, where are you?" Qrow asked, pushing himself up and out of bed since he figured he was going to have to go ahead and do something to get dressed. "Because I can be there-"  
  
"I'm on the way there." James answered. "It's going to be an early meeting and I didn't want to have to make the drive from Atlas right before it. I figured it'd be better to stay a night in a hotel than just drive in at three in the morning."  
  
Qrow blinked and looked over at the clock. It was almost 12, which told him that either James had left home at a time that wasn't reasonable, or something else was wrong. It depended on when James' meeting would be.  
  
Ultimately, Qrow didn't think that the best thing that he could have done was to go ahead and try to get to James that night, especially if the guy was going to be working in the morning- and first thing, by the sounds of it. He sucked on his lower lip for a minute as he tried to piece out some sort of solution, and it didn't take long for him to find one.  
  
"Look, if you want to be able to rest tonight, maybe we could meet up after you get off of work tomorrow?" Qrow suggested as he lifted a hand up so that he could scratch at his chin. He didn't know whether James was going to be on board with all of it, but that was a possibility that Qrow was willing to face.  
  
On the other end of the line, James hesitated. "We could do that." He said, though there was some sort of trepidation about him when he spoke. Like he was afraid to find out what it was that Qrow wanted, or maybe like he was personally afraid to find out what it was that Qrow would think once James bothered to bring up what it was that he did want.  
  
"Jim?" Qrow asked, knowing that there wasn't exactly the best chance that he was going to get through to James without prompting the guy somehow. But then again, James had been the one to call him instead of the other way around. "What're you thinking?"  
  
James was quiet for a little bit longer, but eventually he did speak up and explain himself. "I thought I missed an intersection." He started. "I'm just going to be up there for a few days and I won't have much to do other than sit around the motel where I'm booked."  
  
"Well, I'm glad that I can be a means to an end for you." Qrow laughed into the phone. He could feel his heart beginning to speed up slightly in his chest as he talked to James, but he didn't know why. There was a big part of him that just told Qrow that this was a case where it was probably for the best if they didn't talk about what had happened.  
  
But at the same time, James _wanted_ to be around him even after anything, and Qrow knew that probably meant that they were on at least mostly good terms.  
  
It was much more than he had originally thought.  
  
"Look," James said. "I figured that since we went to the bar last time-" There was a long hesitation, like James couldn't quite figure out what he wanted to say next. "-This is weird, isn't it?"  
  
"Only as weird as you make it." Qrow furrowed his brow as he said the words. He looked out the window and watched the way that the world seemed to churn by outside. "If you want to get drinks again, I'm game."  
  
Qrow tried not to bring up the topic of what was being left unsaid between the two of them. He didn't want to make it get any weirder than it could have been otherwise, but at the same time....  
  
What was he supposed to think? The last time that he and James had done much of anything together, it had ended up as a one night stand and there wasn't going to be erasing that fact from their history. No matter what, their friendship- if it could even be called that, had been tainted.  
  
But now it seemed like James wanted a second try at things. Maybe if they were going to be friends or anything else, regardless of what that ended up being, maybe what James wanted was to know that the two of them could walk on fairly even ground instead of things getting much weirder than they needed to be.  
  
"Drinks sound good." James said, though his voice sounded quiet. "Just hopefully-"  
  
"Right." Qrow cut James off, knowing that it was probably just about the best thing that he could do for the guy. "Of course."  
  
"Alright." James said finally. It sounded like he was getting out of the worst of the traffic at that point, and Qrow figured it might have been a good idea to let James just do his own thing for a while. "So I'll see you soon?"  
  
"Sure thing." Qrow answered. "Call me after work?"  
  
"I will." James said, his voice sounding a little bit softer than Qrow had expected. "Bye, Qrow."  
  
"Bye, Jimmy."  
  
"It's James."  
  
"I know."

 

* * *

 

Qrow got the call at around eight o’clock the next night, and was sure to get out of work early so that he wouldn't have to worry about anything happening or getting wrapped up there. He and James had agreed that the two of them were going to be meeting at the food court where the two of them had gotten into a minor shouting match not that long ago.  
  
He didn't know what he was going to have to expect, but Qrow was mostly excited to see James again, especially when they were going to be on good terms this time. No nerves, nothing weird. It was just going to be time spent between two friends who happened to have slept together at some point.  
  
Which was only partially awkward, but he was able to deal with that.

Whether James would was another question in itself.  
  
The walk down to the food court wasn't exactly fun- it had been raining, the sort of cold fall rain that chilled his bones and left him shivering. Qrow wished that he had something to protect himself from it other than a sweater, but he was going to have to deal.  
  
In the end, he just put some headphones in that he plugged into his phone. Qrow chose some music, and then that was just it. He was able to drown out the world around him and focus on the walk that was going to get him to the food court.  
  
When he finally arrived, it was mostly dark as the various eateries inside were beginning to close up. Qrow suppressed a shiver as he pulled out his earbuds and looked around the food court in search of James.  
  
James was sitting at a table with his back turned to the large window behind him, scrolling through something on his phone with an almost contented look. Qrow waited for a moment, just to be sure that he wasn't going to end up making an awkward mess out of himself when he decided to go and try to strike up a conversation between the two of them.  
  
He shoved his hands down into his pockets and approached.  
  
"Hey, Jim." Qrow greeted James.  
  
James looked up at him, then down at the phone, where he closed out of something rather abruptly before he put his phone away. "Hey, Qrow." James greeted him, with an awkward expression. "You walked?"  
  
"Yeah, I did." Qrow said as he slid into the seat across from James. "Just some rain. Not fun, but-"  
  
"Yeah, I get that." James replied, seeming mostly content. "How are you?"  
  
"Fine." Qrow answered. "Long day at work, but that was about it. You?"  
  
"The same." James began, "I've been wrapped up in meetings all day, and haven't gotten much of a chance to stop."  
  
"What do you even do for work, anyways?" Qrow asked, leaning in towards James and bracing himself against the table in front of him. "I don't think you've ever said."  
  
James blinked. "I'm a civil engineer." He explained. "You know, building bridges, that sort of thing."  
  
"So construction?" Qrow asked, looking James up and down. The guy was big, and looked like he was probably rather strong, but somehow James didn't strike him as a builder. Not manually- not with those injuries.  
  
"No." James smiled through the word. "I'm the guy that comes and designs the bridges to make sure that they're structurally sound. It's not terribly interesting work but..."  
  
Qrow blinked, a little bit more than just surprised to learn this about James. He hadn't exactly expected to hear about James having that sort of work. "So what happens if you do your job wrong? If I do my job wrong I give a discount and offer to tattoo over it."  
  
"Usually?" James tried to start. "Usually if I do my job wrong you end up with collapses, deaths... it's not fun." His expression got all tight at that. "There's a reason that I do multiple versions of everything before we even start building. A lot of math, design, prototyping on small scales..."  
  
"So what are you even working on here?" Qrow asked, blinking. "I know you probably don't want to talk about this much."  
  
James hesitated, his mouth opening a little bit as he sits upright properly and shifts in his seat. "There's a traffic circle that they want to build leading towards the airport. I've been brought on to keep the project clean."

Qrow blinked, realizing that it was going to be hard for him to hide how little interest he had in traffic circles, and really, he seriously doubted that James had much interest in them either. But it was James' work. 

He leaned across the table and let his hands slide down toward James' hands as secretly as he could manage. He didn't expect for much to come from that, but at the same time, it didn't hurt for him to try and find out whether or not there was an progress.  
  
James' hands were now clutched around a cup of coffee, and Qrow was quick to realize that he wasn't wearing a glove, but at the same time, he doubted that James would have come out completely without anything. Maybe James had just ditched it because of the fact that the two of them were meeting.  
  
James had a professional job, besides. There wasn't much pretending that James was going to be able to get away with showing off tattoos and metal in a professional setting. It was probably considered unbecoming, and James seemed like the type to want to keep up appearances.

Not to mention secrecy.

"So," Qrow said, casting a quick glance around the food court that the two of them were in as he realized that it probably wouldn't hurt for him to bring up the prospect of the two of them eating before they lost the chance to do it without getting caught out in the rain. "Food?"  
  
Across from him, James seemed to pause a little bit, his eyes sliding away from Qrow for a second before he let out a quiet sigh that was just audible enough for Qrow to hear. "Food sounds good." He leaned back in his seat a little bit and closed his eyes. "I suppose that we can eat here or we can go somewhere else."  
  
"I'd rather not walk." Qrow answered.  
  
"I have a car." James replied, chuckling lowly. "In the parking garage behind the mall. I could get us somewhere without us having to worry about being caught in the rain."  
  
Qrow hadn't expected that sort of offer, but he was also more than willing to bet that James had brought it up for a reason. "I mean, if you don't mind driving?"  
  
"I don't mind." James answered as he lifted his cup of coffee up to his lips to take a deep sip from the hot drink. "If you don't mind riding?"  
  
Qrow blinked, and he needed a long moment to figure out whether or not James was making a joke or trying to hit on him. Considering what happened the last time that the two of them had been together, it wouldn't have surprised him much.  
  
In the end, Qrow decided that the best thing that he could go ahead and do was to just offer James the answer that could apply to either of the two questions. In the end it was all going to depend on which of the two possibilities it was that James was using.  
  
"I _definitely_ don't mind riding." Qrow laughed, leaning back in his seat.  
  
"It's settled then." James murmured as he pushed himself up to his feel so that he could lead the two of them out to his car. "Walk with me?"  
  
Qrow couldn't help but wonder if there was some special reason that James would have used that particular sort of phrasing,. It sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite put his finger on where he'd heard it before.  
  
"Of course, Jimmy."  
  
"It's James." The man at Qrow's side said with a shake of his head as the two of them began on the walk out to the parking garage. "Do I have to keep telling you?"  
  
"Technically, no." Qrow laughed. "I just like that the nickname bothers you."  
  
"It makes me feel like a child."  
  
"And James feels too professional for my tastes. I don't know if you haven't noticed, but I'm not exactly a suit and tie guy like you." Qrow took the opportunity to gesture to himself and show James that he was just wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with a damp sweater. "If I had something that I could call you that didn't make me feel like I was dealing with a school principal..."  
  
James rolled his eyes. "You could call me Jim, I suppose."  
  
"Fine then." Qrow said. "Jim it is."

For a moment, Qrow could have sworn that he'd seen James' eyes go all soft, like he was just accepting the fact that he was going to have to deal with Qrow using a nickname. Qrow was glad that James had been willing to give a suggestion to him for what the nickname that Qrow used for him should be. At least James wouldn't get all bothered by just being called Jim.  
  
But that moment soon ended as they began the ascent to the floor where James had parked his car. For a moment, Qrow had to wonder what James' car was going to be like. He'd never actually gotten to see what the inside of it was like- he knew that it was a silver sedan, but that was about it.  
  
Would James be the type to stay super clean and organized for people in public but then his car would end up being a complete wreck?  
  
Qrow doubted it, but he still had to wonder. He'd been surprised enough times over the course of his life.  
  
"So you won't mind me calling you Jim, right?"  
  
"I mean, not really." James answered. "I still prefer my actual name, but if you insist on using a nickname, it might as well be that one."  
  
Qrow nodded and stepped up besides James as they slowed to a stop beside the car that Qrow recognized from his and James' very brief encounter at the gas station in Atlas. And when James moved to unlock the vehicle, Qrow just stood back and out of the way.  
  
He heard a quiet chirp that was enough to tell Qrow that the car had been unlocked, and then James opened the driver's side door to the car. Realizing that was his cue to join James, Qrow went to the passenger's side and was quick to climb in.  
  
The car was almost spotless, aside from an empty coffee cup in the center console cup holder that Qrow had to assume was from James' commute.  
  
James didn't climb into the car though, he just reached in and grabbed the cup before taking it and disposing of it at a nearby garbage can.  
  
Huh.  
  
And then James climbed in beside Qrow and pulled the door shut. Qrow watched as James took a short minute to situate himself- placing his gloves up on the dashboard in front of him and then sliding his key into the ignition but not turning the car on.  
  
"So," James started, looking over at Qrow. "You know somewhere good?"  
  
"Yeah, I do." Qrow answered. "You mind bar food?"  
  
"After my day?" James almost chuckled out the words. "I don't mind bar food."  
  
Qrow let himself smirk. "So, you want to take a left once you're on the road."  
  
James just shook his head and let out a quiet noise before pulling out of the parking space and beginning the ride down towards the street. Qrow took the chance while they drove to think over a place to go.  
  
There was a pretty nice place called Junior's that tended to have good food, so Qrow figured that it probably wouldn't hurt to suggest the place if James didn't mind bar food. The music tended to be a bit loud, but Qrow got the feeling that James might not mind that so much if it meant that he wasn't going to be noticed while he dined.  
  
"So, this place you're taking me to-" James started. "Does it have a name or am I just going to be doing a lot of guessing as I drive?"  
  
"It has a name." Qrow leaned back into his seat and looked out the window. "Junior's. Has a red and black sign with a bear on it."  
  
James looked over at him and just raised an eyebrow as he pulled up to the booth where he was going to have to pay for his parking space.  
  
"Don't ask me." Qrow said, shrugging with the words. "I'm just suggesting a place with good food."  
  
"Why do I get the feeling you don't go for the food?" James said, quietly. Qrow blinked and found himself squinting at James for a moment before he responded.  
  
"I  mean, the drinks are pretty good there too. Junior knows his stuff, you just have to trust him to do his thing."

Qrow smiled and saw that they were getting close to the bar before looking over at James. "It's the next left." He announced. James gave him a sound of affirmation to show that he had indeed caught on, and then the two of them were taking a left and James was parking them in front of Junior's.  
  
Though he was about ready to get out of the car, Qrow decided that it was the best for him to just wait for James. Especially since it looked like James was in the middle of the process of getting out of the suit jacket that he'd been stuffed into all day.  
  
It started with the jacket being tossed into the back seat of the car, and then James was rolling his sleeves up enough that it was enough to show off his arms. Qrow watched the way that the left arm became properly exposed first, and then the right followed.  
  
James still hesitated when he went for it, though.  
  
But at the same time, a few weeks ago James never would have even considered it. The tie that James was wearing- red, Qrow noted was next to go, getting tossed into the back alongside the jacket. James let out a quiet sigh, and then looked over at Qrow before smiling gently at him.  
  
"Shall we?"  
  
Qrow blinked, and nodded, though it was hesitant. Qrow got the feeling that James had only decided to ditch that clothing because it meant that he and Qrow would look a little bit less out of place together, but he also couldn't mind it.  
  
"Yeah." Qrow opened the door, and climbed out, and soon James was doing the same on the other car. He and James exchanged a quick look, and then they were on their way in and heading for a booth in the back that Qrow picked out.  
  
It meant that they'd be out of view, so that was more than enough by Qrow's standards.  
  
James took one side of the booth and Qrow took the other. Qrow knew that they'd have service much sooner than later, and so he just relaxed back into the leather seat of the booth. James didn't relax as easily, and he was quick to reach for a menu with his right hand instead of deciding to talk to Qrow about anything.  
  
Which meant that it was probably up to Qrow to break the ice on this one.  
  
"So, how's the arm doing?" Qrow asked, gesturing over to James' left arm. "Ink faded yet?"  
  
James blinked and set the menu down in front of him, though Qrow watched the way that James slid it more to the center. The blue eyes man looked over at his left arm, and it did look a little bit like the ink was beginning to fade.  
  
They were going to have to go ahead and schedule another appointment soon by the looks of things.  
  
"It's getting there." James answered. "Up around the shoulder is where most of the fading has been."  
  
Qrow nodded along, listening to James' explanation. James went over a few things, pointing out spots where it had faded the most, turning over his left hand so that he could show the way that the ink on his fingertips had faded almost completely, and even bringing up a spot on the inside of his elbow.  
  
And for the most part, that was enough to answer most of Qrow's questions. He knew points that needed to be paid attention to when he finally went through with the final inking.  
  
That was, assuming that James wanted to actually go through with it. But seeing him now was almost night and day from how James had been during that first scared meeting. He couldn't imagine James not wanting to go through it at this point.  
  
James' eyes flicked away from Qrow, and that was when Qrow realized that they had company coming their way, in the form of a gigantic man dressed in what looked like decent business wear.  
  
Qrow looked up at him and just shot him a smile.  
  
"Hey there Junior."  
  
"Qrow!" Junior exclaimed, leaning against the side of one of the booths and crossing his arms over his broad chest as he gave Qrow a quick look up and down. "What brings you back here?"  
  
"Your dinner menu mostly," Qrow laughed. "Though I wouldn't mind a-"  
  
Junior gave Qrow a flat look that said more than a single glance should have. It was the kind that silently asked Qrow whether or not he should actually be drinking that night- whether or not he was driving.  
  
Qrow sighed and looked across the table at James before looking back up at Junior. "Just food."  
  
Junior nodded before looking over at James, and then back to Qrow. "Should I leave you two a few minutes to figure things out?" He asked, just taking a moment to look down at the table.  
  
"Yes, please." James answered quietly. "But if you wouldn't mind, could I get a glass of water?"  
  
Qrow decided to interject then. "Make it two."  
  
Junior nodded and then he was off, leaving Qrow and James alone to their own devices.  
  
"I told you it wasn't bad." Qrow commented as he tried to make himself comfortable again. "I hope you don't mind it?"  
  
"That-" James chuckled. "Will have to depend on the food."  
  
"It's not that bad here, promise." Qrow answered before looking down at the menu that was in front of James. He was already fairly certain that he knew what he wanted to get, but it seemed like James either needed the time or he just preferred to go at his own pace.  
  
James smiled softly down at the menu, and for a second his eyes flicked up to Qrow. Still that same blue that Qrow had gotten so used to.  
  
But in the end, Qrow didn't actually know what they were doing there. They had come out to get something to eat and just talk, but in the end, there was so much that the two of them needed to be able to resolve between the two of them.  
  
"So, back to our conversation." Qrow drew James' attention back up to him. "Do you think you want to go through with getting it done permanently?" Qrow didn't need to tell James what he was talking about.  
  
He never seemed to need to anymore.  
  
"Qrow, I-"  
  
"Jim, really."  
  
There was a quiet sigh that James let out, and Qrow kept his eye on James' hands. There was a moment where James moved to ball those hands into fists, but then he didn't, deciding to set them palms-down on the table.  
  
"I don't really know." James admitted, and it almost looked like he was about to be crushed by the gravity of those words. "I've been feeling better about things, but it's not just going away overnight."  
  
"But you don't want to just keep getting this done temporarily over and over again, do you?" Qrow drummed his fingertips on the table in front of him. "I want to help you, I mean it when I say that, but I'm not going to help you stay stagnant."  
  
James pursed his lips and his brow furrowed slightly as he tried to put together his thoughts. "It's a big decision. It's a permanent change to my body when my body's already..."  
  
Qrow didn't need for James to finish that sentence, and he was also pretty sure that he didn't want to hear whatever came after it. He'd been able to see the extent of the damage firsthand, and he knew damn well that James had a complex over the whole thing.  
  
Not that he could do anything about it.  
  
"But wouldn't it make a difference that you get to choose it?" Qrow asked, keeping his voice low in volume for the sake of keeping the conversation as comfortable between the two of them as he could manage. "Because you didn't exactly get to choose-"  
  
James slid that menu that was in front of him a little bit further away from him to signal that he'd made a decision as to what he wanted, but Qrow also knew that they shouldn't be expecting any sort of company from Junior anytime soon.

Junior had a sixth sense for when it was and wasn’t a good idea to get close.  
  
When James spoke again, his voice was hushed, like he was afraid that he would end up scaring something and then he'd never be able to live it down. "The fact that I get to choose is what makes it so hard." James admitted, quietly. "If my body's going to change any more from natural, I need to be able to make that decision for myself and be sure about it."  
  
Pause.  
  
"You said it before, Qrow, there's no going back on this."  
  
James was right, Qrow thought. He had definitely said that, and in the end, the only thing that Qrow could actually do was just try to support James in any way that he could- regardless of whether he would end up being able to line his pockets as a result of James' choice.  
  
"Alright." Qrow said, setting one hand on the table in front of him. He wanted to reach across and see whether James would be willing to make slight contact that way, but he seriously doubted it. The most that the two of them had done thus far had been tumbling into bed together, and that still was an issue that hadn't exactly been resolved.  
  
James just smiled softly at Qrow from across the table in a way that was too gentle and was enough to make Qrow's stop in his heart a little bit.  
  
"Alright?'  
  
"Whatever you want to do, Jim, I'm going to support you." Qrow explained himself, keeping his voice as clear as he could. "But in the end, it's your choice to make."  
  
James nodded slowly, and those soft eyes closed for a second as he let out a quiet sound. "Thank you, Qrow." A pause. "For everything. You've..." James' voice trailed off a little bit, and Qrow found himself nearly having to restrain himself from prompting James into finishing. "You've helped me a lot."  
  
"Have I now?" Qrow asked, blinking. "Because all I've done was bother you for a few months and put some ink on your arm a little bit."  
  
At first, James didn't say anything to Qrow. It almost seemed like James was without any way that he could actually give a proper response to that. Or like it was possible that there was something that James wanted to be able to go ahead and say but couldn't quite bring himself to do.  
  
He just shook his head though, and to Qrow's surprise, James actually reached across the table and let their fingers brush against each other. The first thing that Qrow realized was that he was touching James' right hand. It was in the cool metal that he felt. He just opened his hand up, and soon he and James were beginning to wind their grips together into one.  
  
It was intimate, comforting.  
  
Qrow liked it.  
  
Neither of them spoke until Junior was there, in which case he and James just stopped touching entirely. They took their time to make their orders, and then once they were alone again, Qrow didn't reach out to touch James again. If that was going to happen, Qrow was willing to let it be because James wanted it that way.  
  
That didn't happen though. The two of them were happy to dissolve their conversation into small talks. Qrow would take his time to tell James stories about the weird things that had happened over the course of him living with Summer and Taiyang, and James would return with stories of his own about when he was in the military when he was younger, or with stories about his time in university.  
  
In a way, it was a chance for both of them to actually get to know each other over a meal instead of having to worry about calming one down over the other, or talking about nothing more than the professional relationship that existed between the two of them.  
  
So James and Qrow ate their meals, and when it was time to leave, the two men walked out to James' car in hopes that they'd be able to go home.  
  
James climbed in behind the wheel of the car, and Qrow couldn't help but wonder when he climbed in beside James. There was a pause- a period of time where James seemed almost afraid to turn the key and see what would happen next between them.  
  
Qrow just decided that the best thing that he could offer to James was whatever small comfort he could.  
  
He just smiled at James from his seat and asked one simple question.  
  
"So, where are you staying?"  
  
James looked like he was about to answer the question but then he paused, his mouth closing a little bit before turning into a smile of sorts. "I have a hotel room." James answered, matter-of-factly.  
  
"Mind showing me?" Qrow asked with some hesitation.  
  
James paused and exhaled slowly, eyes slipping shut for a second before reopening. "Not at all."  
  
And with that, James put the car into drive, and drove the two of them across town to the hotel room that he was currently calling his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


	5. Center

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James finally goes to Qrow to get the work done and out of the way on his arm. He and Qrow have to talk, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here the beast is slain.
> 
> Writing this fic got to be a certain kind of hell for a while, and I am so glad to see it finally finished and out here for you guys to see. I'm sorry for all of the waiting that had to be done from chapter to chapter, but in the end, I hope you all thought it was worth it.
> 
> Thank you all for your support! 
> 
> Enjoy the ending <3

James woke up completely surrounded by a certain warmth that he didn’t want to separate himself from.

He didn't open his eyes any further than just a crack, mostly because he didn't want to break himself out of the spell that had been woven around him since the night before. He _knew_ that he was going to have to get up soon and see about going out for work, but that didn't mean that it was what he wanted to do.  
  
He shifted slightly in the bed where he lay, and he could hear the quiet sniffling of another body pressed up against his right side. They were warm, and definitely smaller than him, but the pressure of having them pressed against him was pleasant.  
  
Slowly, James let his eyes flicker open until he saw the sight of the top of Qrow's head, resting on his chest as the smaller man slept the morning away, feeling almost completely oblivious to what was going on around him.  
  
Unlike the last time that he'd woken up in bed with Qrow, this was different. This time it was a pleasant thing that they'd both wanted instead of being the result of two men drunkenly stumbling into bed together and hoping that it was a good night.  
  
Whether or not this had been James' intention when he'd gotten in contact with Qrow was hard to say. Yes, he definitely felt attachment to the man, and he definitely was at a point where he felt much more comfortable with Qrow in general.  
  
But now that he laid there in bed to think about it all, James wasn't quite sure what either of them were looking for.

Perhaps, for him at least, the first time there had been more than just a small amount of trepidation that had led up to the first time that he and Qrow had ended up in bed, but it had been mixed with so many other things. Alcohol, the fact that Qrow had specifically spent time that day and the day before trying to get James to calm down, the fact that he could trust Qrow with his body on _some_ level-  
  
James cut off the train of thought before he could let himself spiral any further than he already was. He shouldn't have been putting those sorts of thoughts on Qrow. He knew that in the end, Qrow was probably going to end up running from him as soon as the tattoo business was over and done with anyways.  
  
And with Qrow pressed up against him like this, and him feeling so content aside from the nerves that now began to grip James' heart, James couldn't quite bring himself to wake Qrow and try to run. He'd done it too many times. First because he was scared, and second because he needed time to be able to process what had happened between him and Qrow.  
  
And now this time, he didn't want to run for any reason other than the fact that he was certain that in the end, Qrow was going to end up being the one that was going to run from James.  
  
Carefully, James lifted a hand and allowed himself to card his fingers through Qrow's messy dark hair. He just watched the way that Qrow slept, and took in his features.  
  
The pale skin, and the way that Qrow's dark eyelashes stood out against it. The soft slope of Qrow's nose, even the way that his brow seemed to furrow in Qrow's sleep were enough to make James feel like there was nobody else that he would rather be close to like this.  
  
Qrow was wonderful, and James was damn sure that he didn't want to lose him.  
  
He was just so, so afraid.  
  
Under James' touch, Qrow stirred slightly and let out a quiet sound that was akin to a groan before cracking his eyes open to look up at James.  
  
James tried to bite back the guilt and just smiled down at Qrow. "Hey."  
  
Qrow blinked wearily and then dropped his head back down onto James' chest. "Hey, Jim." Qrow mumbled into the metal plate that made up James' side. The only thing that James could think about was how uncomfortable it had to be.  
  
"I didn't mean to wake you." James explained himself, keeping his voice low so that he couldn't end up bothering Qrow too much. "I'm sorry."

Qrow stretched slightly, and James didn't miss the slight arch in Qrow's back that came with the motion. James didn't move to get up, since he was pretty sure that he had an hour before he had to get out of bed and get going anyways. He let his eyes flicker shut as he waited for Qrow to say something, and James just did his best to enjoy the warmth and comfort of Qrow's touch.  
  
Finally, Qrow mumbled out some words for James to hear. "I don't mind getting woken up." The thinner man shifted slightly so that he could look up into James' eyes. Even in a state of exhaustion and heavy with sleep, Qrow's eyes managed to strike James and leave him feeling more than just a bit drawn in by Qrow's gaze.  
  
"You sure?" James said, quietly.  
  
Qrow lifted his head up and turned so that he and James were nearly lying chest to chest. He smiled up at James. "Yeah, I am." Qrow rested the point of his chain on James' shoulder and smiled up at him. "Besides, I figure I'm just going to leave for work when you do anyways."  
  
James nodded.  
  
He stared down at Qrow, wordless. There was an unfamiliar sort of clenching in his chest, and when James raised his left hand to wrap his arm around Qrow, suddenly James knew what he wanted. He pulled Qrow in close to him and let himself and Qrow begin to tangle their legs together.  
  
James' eyes scanned over the tattoos that covered Qrow's body. There were a lot of them, flowers, and dragons, and birds. They all looked good, creating a patchwork of art across Qrow's body where there were also small marks that had been left behind from the night before. Marks that James had left behind- ones that would surely fade with time.  
  
He didn't mind that they weren't going to be permanent.  
  
James closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Qrow to just tug the smaller man even closer to him so that James would be able to wrap himself up around Qrow almost completely.  
  
All of a sudden, he was pretty sure that he _knew_ what he wanted.  
  
He let out a quiet noise when Qrow's fingers made their way up to James' hair, carding through it and mussing it in ways that James was fairly certain he was going to have to spend a bit of time to get it back into order.  
  
"Hey," Qrow spoke up, smoothing his fingers over the spots where James had started to go grey around his temples. "What's going on?"  
  
James let his eyes open back up and he reached up to meet Qrow's touch with his right hand. "Nothing." James said, but he knew that it was a lie. He knew that there were things that he very obviously wanted to say to Qrow- things that he wanted to say but couldn't figure out how. "Just content."  
  
Qrow raised an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving James. "Is that all?"  
  
"I mean..." James shifted slightly, but only enough so that he could make himself feel more comfortable. "No, but I'm just trying to figure things out."  
  
Instead of shifting with James, Qrow pushed himself upright and seated himself with his back against the headboard. "You wanna talk about it?" He asked. James couldn't help but smile and let himself sit up, though he was careful to keep the blanket wrapped around him- though it was mostly for his own comfort over everything else.  
  
"I mean," James decided that the least that he could do was sit up properly and join Qrow with his own back to the headboard. He settled in against it, sliding a pillow up for some extra cushioning, then James began to explain himself. "I just have a lot of thinking to do."  
  
"You've had a lot of thinking to do for a while." Qrow said, reaching over to lace their fingers together in an act that felt entirely too intimate, despite everything. "Is it about the arm?"  
  
"Yeah." James finally said, keeping his voice low. "I think I want to do it."  
  
Qrow blinked and tilted his head back so that he could stare up at the ceiling in thought. "If that's all, you should have just said something, Jim."  
  
"You know that it's not a small deal."  
  
"I know." Qrow said. "I'm going to work with whatever you want."

James couldn't help the slow, gentle smile that spread across his face. He brought his hand up, just so that he could brush some of Qrow's messy black hair out of his face and cup his companion's cheek. He hesitated for a moment before he spoke up, instead deciding to just relish in the way that Qrow tilted into James' touch.  
  
"Thank you." James finally whispered. He wanted to lean forward and press a kiss to Qrow's cheeks, or to his lips, or anything, but he resisted. Too intimate. "I have to start getting ready for work."  
  
Qrow blinked and pulled away from James. "Yeah, I figured. I'll leave you the shower first?"  
  
For a moment, James couldn't think of anything other than the fact that Qrow was too good for him. He smiled and then climbed up out of the bed before fumbling around on the floor so that he could at least find some clothes that he could pull on before he made his way off to the bedroom.  
  
Qrow didn't even seem to notice what he was doing, and for James, that was probably the greatest relief that he could have asked for.  
  
In the end, what it came down to was that Qrow was too good. Too good for what wasn't something that he wanted to think about, but Qrow was too good.  
  
So James slipped off to the shower and closed the door behind him, leaving Qrow to his own devices on the other side of the door. When James heard the TV get clicked on, he relaxed, and then took the chance to begin concentrating on his schedule for the day ahead of him.

 

* * *

 

James stepped out of the building that had been acting as a de-facto office for him over the course of the last day or two. He was going to be caught in Vale for a few more days as he worked on the roundabout project, which meant that he was probably going to end up with nothing to do on more than one night.  
  
He sighed heavily and looked up at the sky. It was just starting to get dark, and James couldn't help but wonder whether or not Qrow would still be in at work or not. Whether he could go to Emerald City Tattoos and actually set up an appointment to get the arm done permanently.  
  
It had been the middle of his lunch break when James had finally come to a conclusion on what he wanted to do. The possibility that he would never see Qrow again after it was all done was a very real and valid one, but James had decided that in the end, what he wanted to do was make himself feel better.  
  
Some pain he could deal with.  
  
Not seeing Qrow ever again was something that he could deal with.  
  
He couldn't deal with what it would be like when he went back to having to see how badly mismatched his limbs were on a day to day basis. He'd missed being able to do things like wear short sleeved shirts in the comfort of his own home, and he'd missed being able to look down at his hands and think of how different and foreign the right was in comparison to his left.  
  
In the end, it had been a simple decision. James had been bogging himself down for so long with thoughts about the permanency of it all, but once he managed to get past that, it hadn't even mattered.  
  
He wanted to get the tattoo done permanently, and he only had one person that he wanted to be working on it.  
  
James rubbed at his right shoulder for a second as he began down the sidewalk. A quick look at his watch told him that he was going to have a bit of time before Emerald City Tattoos would close for the night, and James was mostly confident that he could get there before they closed.  
  
At the very least, it was likely that he was going to end up seeing Qrow as he left work for the night anyways.  
  
James closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly to enjoy the cool air on his skin, and the sounds of the city as it buzzed and lived on around him. Vale was nice, definitely not a place that he would choose to live in personally, but it was a nice city nonetheless.

By James' guess, he was a couple of blocks away from the tattoo parlor at that point. He was going to have to just stop in and see whether Qrow was there, and then he'd work from there. That was something that he could do.  
  
It was just a matter of getting there.  
  
James felt entirely too certain that he was going to end up regretting the walk later on that day. He was going to end up getting back to his motel room with one leg aching and pain working its way up his spine. It wasn't as though it was something that he was completely unused to dealing with, it was just mostly frustrating.  
  
But James didn't want to focus on that. If he thought about that sort of thing too heavily he was bound to end up getting too bogged down with the inevitabilities of pain. He decided instead to focus on anything else- what his schedule looked like for the next day, the cars passing him by, the storefronts that were at his side with their many brightly lit displays.  
  
There was a certain sort of beauty in the way that the world tended to crawl by, ignorant to the problems of any one person.  
  
Within several minutes James reached the front of Emerald City Tattoos. The front was lit, and he could see that even through the tint of the windows. Inside, it sounded like some people were talking, and James figured that meant that the odds were that Qrow was going to be inside.  
  
He stopped just outside of the door and inhaled deeply, steeling himself as he had done every time that he'd come here alone.  
  
When he was ready, James finally pushed the door open and stepped inside.  
  
Qrow and Ozpin were both at the counter in the front. Ozpin seemed to be working on something, while Qrow was seated cross-legged on top of the counter with half a sandwich resting on his knee. When James stepped inside both of their gazes snapped up to meet him.  
  
Ozpin didn't say anything, just looked to Qrow, whose expression had seemed to light up slightly at James' presence. The thin man shifted on the counter, picking up the sandwich so that it wouldn't end up getting ruined before hopping down.  
  
"Hey, Jimmy." Qrow greeted him, and he even seemed to smile a little bit wider when he saw that James seemed a little bit annoyed with the use of the nickname once again. He shook his head and leaned back against the counter. "What brings you here?"  
  
"I wanted to talk." James answered, mentally slapping himself for failing to be as specific as he would have liked to be. He needed to compose himself and get out a proper answer for Qrow and just tell the other man that he'd come to a decision.  
  
That wasn't to say that James didn't expect that Qrow had already figured out that was why he was there, though. Qrow was observant- maybe not the most book-smart, but he was streetwise in ways that James was sure he would never really be.  
  
James liked that about him.  
  
"If you just wanted to talk, I figure you would have just called." Qrow laughed between bites of his sandwich. "What's actually going on?" The man's rust colored eyes travelled down James' arms to see that James was currently wearing a pair of gloves.  
  
For just a moment, Qrow's expression read as being that of worry instead of something else.  
  
"I wanted to talk to you about setting up an appointment." James began to explain himself, reaching up to his hands so that he could peel himself out of the gloves that he wore during the workday so that he could at least look presentable to those who didn't know him. "I've decided that I want to go through with it."  
  
Ozpin let out a quiet chuckle and stepped away from the counter. They pat Qrow on the back and uttered something that sounded like a simple "I'll be in my office" and then slipped away into the gear decorated door behind the counter to leave James and Qrow alone.  
  
Qrow's eyes had gone all soft though, in a way that James wouldn't have expected to see in any sort of professional setting.

"You sure you really want to do this, Jim?" Qrow finally asked, in that soft way that James had gotten used to only hearing when Qrow really meant it. In some ways, hearing Qrow like that was a balm- a sign that this would be alright.  
  
And in the end, James fully believed that.  
  
He nodded slightly and leaned in against the counter. "Yeah." He finally said, though the words felt like they were coming with a several months long delay that he could have done a lot to keep from ever becoming an object. "I'm sure."  
  
"Alright." Qrow stepped around the counter to the back and found that book that James had come to recognize as being the one that all of their appointments and bookings were logged into. "Do you want to wait until the rest of that wears off, or..."  
  
"We should probably let it wear." James said, looking down at his left arm for just a second. "I figure we should get the most out of your handiwork if we can."  
  
Qrow blinked, and he looked even a little bit shocked by that, but he let a small smile cross his face and nodded. "Sounds good for me." He flipped through the book, looking over a calendar and taking note of the red markings in it while ignoring the ones in green. "I can pencil you in for a month from now, and if you want, we can move the appointment up to be a bit sooner."  
  
James nodded and reached for his wallet, knowing that he was probably going to have to do something- at least take one of those appointment cards like Qrow had given him the first time around. "That sounds good." James said. "Could we arrange it in the evening so that I don't have to worry about skipping work one day?"  
  
"I could book you on a Saturday." Qrow offered instead. "You could even spend your time out here if you wanted..."  
  
James and Qrow both seemed to pause at that, both of them knowing fully well what Qrow's suggestion meant in the grand scheme of things. This wasn't just a request for an appointment, it was a request for them to spend time together away from work.  
  
And James couldn't exactly pretend as though his heart didn't flutter a little bit every time that he was around Qrow these days. He couldn't pretend that knowing that he had someone in his life that was willing to accept him and care for him despite of the prosthetics and scarring that had marred his body wasn't something that meant a lot.  
  
He was just surprised that it was Qrow who that happened with.

Ultimately, James was mostly glad that he'd been allowed some space so that he could actually mull over his thoughts about what had happened between him and Qrow over instead of getting railroaded with every bad feeling that he never wanted to have to deal with.

The chance that it was all going to be ending in all likelihood put a significant damper on things.

"Saturday sounds good." James finally said, smiling softly across at Qrow. "I'm sure it won't cause any major conflicts in schedule."  
  
Qrow nodded and pointed at one of the dates on the calendar- a saturday, as promised. It had nothing else going on, and James took note of the fact that Qrow had specifically selected a date on a long weekend.  
  
Neither of them had to say what that meant. It was probably going to end up being brushed off as it being extra recovery time since James was going to be getting a rather extensive tattoo, and James didn't really mind that so much.  
  
Besides, he was sure that Qrow would be finding excuses so that he and James could spend time together that weekend outside of offices.  
  
James nodded his response to Qrow, and watched as Qrow wrote in the name "Jim" on that date before flipping the book to the back so that he could write out one of those appointment cards as he had once before.  
  
Once it was done, he passed it across the counter to James, who was glad to tuck it away into his wallet where it would be able to be accessed easily and kept as safe as was necessary.  
  
James saw Qrow's eyes flick up to the clock, and the way that a slight smile crossed Qrow's face. "How's food sound?"  
  
James felt the way that his heart jumped a little bit at Qrow's question and nodded. "I think I saw a place I wouldn't mind trying on the way here?"  
  
"I'll get my jacket."

It occurred to James for a moment that Qrow's response may have been a bit too nonchalant and even eager, but he figured it was best not to bring it up. The last thing that James wanted at this point was to fall back into a pattern of discomfort with Qrow.  
  
But he'd gotten the appointment booked, and that had been the most important thing.  
  
Not much was said between the two of them, and then they were on their way to the restaurant for a meal and drinks.  
  
That night, James went back to his room alone, but not for any bad reason.

 

* * *

 

James spent most of the month steeling himself for what was to come. With an appointment date noted, it was just up to him to keep his head together until it was time for him to go out and meet with Qrow and get the tattoo done properly.

Permanently. 

Every day, the work that Qrow had originally done faded more and more, until James once again started to feel discomfort when he looked down at his two hands again. They'd been _right_ , for a little bit, but not they _weren't_ anymore and he wanted nothing more than for him to feel numb when he looked down at them again.  
  
He ended up calling Qrow two weeks before the date that they'd scheduled at around nine in the morning on a day when the stresses and frustrations over the arm had finally gotten to be too great. He'd just needed to be given a chance to get his head together and he hadn’t been able to do that.  
  
James leaned forward in his favorite chair in his living room with his phone clutched against his ear. He listened through the rings, hoping that Qrow would pick up, and when he didn't, James just had to deal with his nerves and set the phone down in hopes that Qrow would call him back sooner than later.

Worst of all, his head kept on going to worst-case scenarios for what could be wrong. Why Qrow wouldn’t have picked up.  
  
Everything in his head rang so loudly and told him that he was wrong, and that everything about his body had been broken beyond repair. People didn’t want a cyborg, he was a monster, he was inhuman

He just needed some sort of reassurance. Any sort of reassurance that would be enough to get him back to normal.

Something to tell him that he was wanted despite what his body was like these days.

The man rested his head in his hands and sucked in a deep, almost shuddering breath. The glove was back, but it was only on his right hand. Just a slight comfort that would get him to a point where he would feel relaxed enough that he could clear his head.  
  
In the end, he didn't know how long he sat there for, and when his phone finally rang it came as a godsend.  
  
James picked up immediately and held the phone to his ear. "Ironwood."  
  
"Hey, Jimmy." Qrow greeted him, his voice sounding almost even light instead of carrying the stress that James did. LIke Qrow didn't even know that there was everything wrong in the world.

Of course Qrow didn't know, James had to remind himself. He had no way of knowing anything as long as he wasn’t in constant contact with James.

"Hey, Qrow." James answered. "It's James."  
  
"I know." Qrow said with a quiet laugh of sorts. "What's up?"  
  
"Can we-" James started, trying to collect his words and thoughts so that he could actually explain himself as easily as he could. Without making himself sound weak or pathetic for it. "Qrow, I need-"  
  
"Jim?" Qrow's voice softened considerably, so much so that it almost dropped down into a whisper of sorts, James realized. "What's wrong?"  
  
"The arm." James finally mumbled. "I need you to move the appointment forward."  
  
"Are you-"  
  
"Yes." James almost snarled the word out. He couldn’t help but feel guilty for it. "I'm sure. Just... please move it forward."  
  
Qrow sounded almost reluctant on the other end of the phone, like he was afraid to give an answer or go ahead and make the change that James had requested, if only because he was nervous about what was going to happen if he did.  
  
James figured that Qrow probably had some sort of professional duty not to make arrangements or do work for anyone that wasn't in their right mind at the time. James could respect that, but at the same time he _needed_ for Qrow to work with him on this.  
  
"Jim, I can do that, but..." there was a moment of hesitation from Qrow. "I have time off right now, do you need to talk or something?"

"Yes." James managed, though his voice came out as being barely above a whisper. "I do."  
  
"Alright." Qrow mumbled. "Tell me what's up."

James inhaled deeply as he tried to steel himself enough that he would be able to talk about what was going on properly. He needed to be able to at least string together coherent enough sentences that Qrow would be able to figure out what was going on.  
  
For now all that James had to do was make sure that he could keep his head together.  
  
"It's gone." He finally managed to begin his explanation for Qrow. "The work that you did on my arm, it's _gone_ and I can't look down at my hands anymore without feeling like it's so completely wrong. I just need help and I can't do anything to fix it." He shook his head and he was sure that Qrow was probably able to hear his breathing on the other end of the line. "It's just messing with my head."  
  
Qrow was quiet for far too long, and it left James' heart speeding out as he worried more and more that Qrow was getting ready to say something along the lines of turning him down. When Qrow finally did speak up, his voice was so quiet and gentle that James had to take a moment to convince himself that this was the same Qrow that he'd come to get close to.  
  
"We can move your appointment up." Qrow said, confirming what he'd already told James. "I'm going to find a good time slot as soon as I can get you in."  
  
James didn't say anything at first, nodding before he realized that there was no way that Qrow would be able to see his affirmation over the phone. "Okay." He whispered into the phone after a long pause. He could hear the sound of Qrow moving around, wherever he was. The sound of paper rustling told James that Qrow was probably at Emerald City Tattoos at the moment.  
  
A small comfort, James thought. At least they could deal with things in a timely manner and James wouldn't be stuck waiting for Qrow to get back to him the next time that he was in the office. "So," Qrow started, accompanied by the sound of his chair squeaking quietly as he leaned back. "I can get you in on Friday if you want it. I know that you'd prefer a day where you don't have to work, but if you're really hurting that bad I don't want to draw it out."

"Thank you." James said, his voice quiet. Already, he was deciding on what he was going to do. He was going to have to call in for work almost assuredly and let them know that he wasn't going to be able to make it that day. He was going to have to relax as best as he could around Qrow once he got out to Vale again.  
  
What state he was going to be in when he got there was another question.  
  
"Does Friday work?" Qrow asked, his voice sounding surprisingly even. "I just need to know that you'll be able to work with it."  
  
"Yeah," James mumbled into the phone as he stood up and slid one hand down into his pocket as he walked to the small calendar that he had posted against the wall in his kitchen. He looked it over, checking for anything else that he could suggest for a day.  
  
He could call in for Friday.

"Friday's good?"  
  
"Yeah." James confirmed. "What time will it be?"  
  
"I'll tell you what, just because I like you-" Qrow joked quietly. "I can get you in as soon as I open up or you can come in later in the day and I'd be alright with keeping the store open for a bit longer to make sure that you got your tattoo done." A pause. "You do realize that it's going to be a long sitting to get that done, don't you?"  
  
"I do." James finally said, his voice quiet. "I can deal with a sitting. It'll be a long time, sure, and it'll be painful but I'm fairly certain that I can deal with the pain."  
  
"That's what they've all said." Qrow laughed this time, and James could almost imagine the smile that Qrow wore on the other side of the phone. However Qrow looked probably didn't match up so well with how James imagined he was feeling. "You sure about this?"

"Completely." James confirmed. "Friday."  
  
"Friday." Qrow reaffirmed. James heard the sound of the man moving around on the other end of the line, followed by what sounded like a quiet cough and then Qrow's voice.  
  
"Jim."  
  
"Yes?"

"Do you want me to come up there and help you out or anything?"  
  
The request was more than enough to leave James taken aback. It wasn't something that he would have expected from anyone save for what little family he did have these days. He couldn't even imagine why Qrow would ask the question.  
  
But at the end of the day, James knew that he had to go ahead and say something to Qrow and give the other man some sort of answer. He looked around the living room of his house, aware of how empty it was. How _lonely_ it was. It would have been nice to have some sort of company, even if it was only for a little while.  
  
James let his eyes slip shut and distanced himself from those thoughts.  
  
"I think I need to get through this on my own." James finally managed to answer Qrow, and the entire time he was completely aware of how nervous he had to sound. How quiet he was. He couldn't get around it, but at the end of the day, he knew it was true. He could deal with this for a few more days, and then he'd go to Qrow and he'd sit in that chair and then things would be better, even if that was going to have to come artificially.  
  
"Alright." Qrow said. "Look, I have to go. If you think you need-"  
  
"I've got it." James cut Qrow off. It wasn't anything malicious, he just needed to prove to himself that he could deal with this on his own. "I'll talk to you soon, I guess."  
  
"Yeah." Qrow said, quietly. "Of course."  
  
A pause.  
  
"Take care, Jim."  
  
"It's James."  
  
"I know." A quiet laugh. "I'll see you soon. Keep your head up."  
  
James nodded again, even though Qrow wouldn't be able to see it. He tried to smile. When he spoke, it came out as being barely above a slight whisper. "Thank you, Qrow." He paused, not knowing whether or not he should add to what he was saying.  
  
Nothing came to mind.  
  
"I'll see you soon."  
  
With that, James hung up the phone and squeezed his eyes shut. He was going to have to deal with this for a few more days, but then he was going to go to Vale for his appointment, and then that would _hopefully_ be the end of all of this. Hopefully it would end three years worth of pain and then he'd be able to get away from all of it.  
  
And whether he got to keep Qrow around after that or not was going to be a question, but it was going to be one that would be more than worth answering.

 

* * *

 

The first day of the three day wait came.  
  
James couldn't bring himself to go to work.  
  
He spent the night awake watching documentaries. Qrow sent him a few photos of some birds that he'd walked by on the way home from work.  
  
James smiled, and sent back a smiley face because it was all he could think to respond with.

 

* * *

 

The second day of the three day wait came.  
  
James didn't have to work that day. He got up and went for a walk, and did his best to ignore the shots of pain that would race up into his hips and spine with every step towards the end of the walk.  
  
He spent his lunch with Glynda, texting Qrow the entire time from under the table. Qrow had a story about how Taiyang had accidentally fried their microwave.  
  
James smiled, and sent back another smiley face because he couldn't think of anything to say.  
  
Qrow responded with two smiley faces and continued with his story.  
  
James didn't mind.

 

* * *

 

 The final day of the three day wait came.  
  
James couldn't sleep. His head was racing with too many possibilities of things that could go terribly wrong at the appointment. There were too many ideas about how this was going to fall apart and James didn’t know how to stop them.  
  
He dragged himself to work that day and hoped that nobody noticed how off he was feeling. He spent his lunch break texting Qrow in hopes of finding comfort.  
  
Qrow just responded with lists of things that James could do to prepare for the appointment that would come in the morning.  
  
James couldn't bring himself to smile, but he sent those smiley faces to Qrow anyways, not because he couldn't think of anything to say. He did it because he thought Qrow could use the comfort of knowing that he'd done well.  
  
Qrow responded with a reassurance that things would be alright, capped off with a smiley face.  
  
James smiled.  
  
He didn't sleep that night.

 

* * *

 

When James got up that morning (there wasn’t much getting up to do really, since he hadn’t slept) he had to go through every part of his morning routine hoping that he wasn't going to end up dragging himself down before he could even make it out the door.  
  
Running through his morning routine was mostly done through a process of compartmentalization. James forced himself to separate from the fact that he was going to be exposing himself to Qrow at all that day, and he forced himself to stop thinking about the fact that his arms were different. Instead he focused on mundane things, like keeping his hair in order and making sure that there weren’t any dirty dishes in the sink when he left. Little things that kept him sane.  
  
This unique sort of stress was going to end that day, in theory. He was going to be going in and he'd sit for Qrow, and then whatever happened after that was going to be fate, possibly.  
  
James was tired of everything, and the chance to finally get his head clear after so long was welcome.  
  
He mostly just had to figure out how he was going to be making it all happen. James had no delusions about this being something that was going to finish out overnight. With the work that Qrow had done before, it had taken several days to get used to seeing his arms mostly matching.

He had no doubt that he was going to need time to re-adjust.

Once he was dressed and showered, James fixed himself a thermos of coffee and went out to the car. He took a moment before he started his car to go ahead and text Qrow and let him know that he was on the way.  
  
It was early though, and James partially suspected that Qrow wasn't even awake yet that morning.  
  
If there was going to be an answer to that question, James figured he was going to find out when he was on the way to Vale.  
  
For the most part, he managed to turn his brain off to everything that was going on. The sound of the music on the radio and the warmth of his coffee was more than enough to provide some reliefs, small as they were.  
  
Everything really started to come at him in the worst ways when James was finally just reaching the outskirts of Vale.

It started in his heartbeat, getting faster and faster, then he felt a little bit like he couldn't breathe quite right, and then eventually his head wouldn't be quiet to the point that he needed to pull over into a parking lot and work through his thoughts that way. James didn't know why it all seemed to wait until he was there on the edge of Vale’s outskirts, but it did, and it all came as a wave of anxiety that wasn't going to subside so easily.  
  
He inhaled deeply and checked his phone to find that Qrow had responded to his message just to let him know that things were still good for him to come in whenever.  
  
That was probably all that James could get out of this.  
  
But he couldn't just let himself shut down, not when he was so close to his getting what he needed.

James closed his eyes and took a deep breath, counting his way through every inhale and exhale. Slowly, he started to get his faculties back until he felt that he was confident enough that he could actually finish the drive into the city.  
  
In the back of his mind, James made a mental note that there was a possibility he would need to get a hotel room that night. He wasn’t the most worried about that, but it was still something he was sure he was going to have to consider at some point. Time would have to tell.  
  
It was another twenty minutes before James was parking his car in the garage as he always did before beginning the walk over to Emerald City Tattoos in hopes of getting his meeting with Qrow.  
  
This time when he got close to the store, Qrow was outside, talking to someone through the window of a car. He backed away for just a second, and then James and Qrow's eyes met for a short moment before Qrow cracked a smile and looked away from him.  
  
James heard Qrow say his goodbyes, and then soon the car was off on its way with whoever was inside- James assumed it was either Summer or Taiyang.

Their eyes met again, and James found himself feeling like he was at a complete loss for things that he could have gone ahead and say to Qrow.  
  
There just wasn't anything that James _could_ think to say to Qrow.  
  
"Hey." Qrow finally greeted him, smiling.

James tried not to feel completely awkward and smiled back at Qrow, since he knew that in the long run that was probably going to end up being the absolute best that he was going to be able to offer the man at the moment.

The anxiety hadn’t subsided all the way.  
  
"Hello, Qrow." James offered the greeting. He slid his hands down into his pockets and watched as Qrow stepped over towards the front door to Emerald City Tattoos to begin to unlock the shop. "How are you?"  
  
"Me?" Qrow raised an eyebrow and looked back over at James over his shoulder. "I'm great, but I wanted to ask you the same thing." He pulled the door open with one arm once it was unlocked. "You've got a long day ahead of you."  
  
James stepped inside of the store once Qrow was out of the way and gently closed the door behind him. He hesitated and sighed heavily. "I could be doing better." He admitted, keeping his voice low. "The last few days have been... hard."  
  
Qrow nodded and stepped up close to James, so that they were almost chest to chest. There was something unsaid there, a silent offer that both of them were too afraid to make themselves. James and Qrow both knew what it was.  
  
James didn't say anything, just opened his arms and let Qrow step in towards him. Qrow took the bait and wrapped himself up in James like that was going to be the only way that he could truly offer any sort of comfort that day. Not that James minded it.  
  
Instead of speaking, James just let his eyes slip shut and nuzzled into Qrow's dark hair. He smelled like some sort of unnameable body wash or shampoo. Something that was kept at that apartment of his, no doubt. James wondered for a second whether or not Qrow was borrowing someone else's scent for the time being or not.

He felt Qrow's arms tighten around his waist, and the way that Qrow just curled himself into James comfortably.  
  
James didn't want to let go, though he knew that he was going to have to eventually. It was different, though. They'd spent two nights together but aside from holding hands that one time at Junior's, nothing had ever felt so intimate.  
  
Maybe it was just James feeling vulnerable and letting that get to him.  
  
"Thank you." James finally mumbled into Qrow's hair. "I'm just nervous."  
  
Qrow released James at that and pulled away, presumably because he had work to do before they could get started on anything anyways. "You have every right to be, Jim." Qrow said, quietly. He looked James up and down for a second and seemed to be thinking over what he could say to the man as a response but was coming up with nothing.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"I was just wondering what you've got for sleeves on." Qrow said, nonchalantly. "Because you know that I'm going to have to get in towards your shoulder blades to make this work."  
  
James looked down at himself for a moment, thinking over whether he had a good answer for Qrow about that or not. He figured that he could have gone ahead and told Qrow that he was wearing a t-shirt underneath his jacket, but at the same time...  
  
In theory, that had a risk of getting in the way. James felt a wave of discomfort that almost felt like nausea rise, but he pushed it down before it could take him over. He couldn't let his nerves get to him like they had last time.  
  
He _wanted_ this. He'd thought it over, he'd lived with what it would be like for a little while even.

He had no good reason to be hesitating at this point.  
  
"T-shirt." James said, quietly. "But if I have to I can lose that." He hesitated. "Door will have to stay closed and locked, though."  
  
Qrow raised an eyebrow at that, and James had to admit that he had more or less expected that sort of reaction out of the other man. There wasn't really any good way for him to explain his hangups to Qrow at this point, but he also figured that Qrow knew enough that he would understand anything that James threw his way. "You think you wouldn't mind doing that?" Qrow asked, quietly. "Because if that's what will make you comfortable..."  
  
"I'd prefer it as a last resort." James said, quietly. "There's... just some stuff that I haven't quite been able to work through, if that makes sense."  
  
"Out of sight out of mind?" Qrow paused, like he was thinking back to something dark. Something terrible, even. James didn't want to go ahead and ask him about it. "I get that." Qrow finally finished, quietly.

"Something like that." James said, though he knew he didn’t sound all that confident when he said it.

It was, of course, a much more complicated issue than one would have thought, but James also knew that there wasn't really going to be any explaining it all easily. He wasn't able to do it, and since it was always hard to talk or even _think_ about on most days, it meant that a lot of things were going unsaid. Maybe someday he would be able to go ahead and explain himself to Qrow, but today probably wasn't that way.  
  
Qrow nodded, deciding that it wasn't best to comment. He gestured over to one of the seats on the side of the room, and James took the cue. He strode over to one and sat down, watching silently as Qrow began to set the shop up for a day of work. What that meant was that he had a lot of putting things away from the night before, checking books over, and making sure that there were working pens up at the counter so that nobody would be left scrambling to find one.

James figured that the two of them were waiting for Ozpin to arrive, whenever that may be. It was probably a part of Qrow's way of dealing with James' request, James realized that.  
  
If Ozpin was there, then there was no chance that they were going to have to leave the room that Qrow's equipment was in for the sake of taking care of customers and watching the front.  
  
James figured that in the end it made for a fairly decent safety net that the both of them could hide behind.  
  
It was a little while, maybe half an hour before Ozpin finally strayed in. Qrow and Ozpin exchanged a look, and that was it. Qrow looked over at James and smiled, and then pulled the door to his room open.  
  
That was it.  
  
That meant that this was actually happening.  
  
James could almost feel his hands beginning to tremble at the thought. He forced himself upright and forced himself through step after step until he was at the threshold of the door to Qrow's office. He sucked in a deep breath and stepped inside and then was sure to close and lock the door behind him.  
  
Qrow wasn't quite ready though. He was getting things in order the same way that he had the last time that James had come in. He was doing things like getting the bed in order so that James could sit comfortably, and making sure that he had inks and stencils all laid out for the day ahead. Extra containers of ink were also spread out and ready for use as soon as they ended up being needed.

James waited patiently by the door while Qrow worked. He took his time, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it up on the coat rack beside the door, and the being careful to roll the sleeve up on his left arm so that it would be well out of the way for the day ahead.  
  
This was happening.  
  
This was really happening.  
  
"You about ready?" Qrow asked, drawing James' attention straight over to him instead of off where it already was.  
  
James sucked in a deep breath and nodded, taking step after step until he was climbing up into the bed and arranging himself as comfortably as he could manage for the day ahead. If things got really bad, he had a bottle of painkillers in his jacket that he could break into.  
  
They would probably also make the day more bearable in general, but that was more of an aside than anything else. And it also relied heavily on how the actual process of getting the tattoo done was going to be.  
  
James squeezed his eyes shut for a second as he brought himself to a point where he would actually be able to give Qrow some sort of answer. Any sort of answer.  
  
He nodded and forced himself to speak up. "Yeah." He finally said as he rested his now bare left arm on the armrest beside him. He didn't know how long he was going to have to sit there, but he had to buckle in for the fact that it was going to be a very long session by the looks of things.  
  
Mostly, James was just hoping that Qrow was ready for what was to come as well.  
  
Qrow moved his seat over to James' left side and set it there before going off to get the rolling tray of inks that he was going to have to use that day. He seemed so relaxed and nonchalant that James almost couldn't believe that it was actually happening.  
  
It almost felt like Qrow didn't quite understand the gravity of everything that was happening, but James also knew that wasn't the case. There was no way that it was the case. Qrow had done this thing so many times that he was probably just at a point where he was desensitized to it.  
  
"You sure, Jim?" Qrow asked as he looked around the room in search of something that was going to end up helping him along. Based on the fact that Qrow was pulling out that gigantic folder, it meant that he was looking for the stencils.  
  
James sighed and sat up properly, leaning away from the back of the seat just a little bit so that he could feel comfortable. "I'm sure." James finally said, though it almost felt like he was forcing it. "Do you have any idea how long it'll take?"  
  
Qrow didn't turn to face James, and that left James feeling a bit too concerned with what was happening. It felt almost like he was being pushed out, but James knew that was wrong.  
  
Everything that he was going was something that he was fairly certain could just be boiled down to being a result of his nerves getting the best of him. James knew that, and he couldn't just pretend as though he wasn't nervous about everything that was happening that day. There wasn't any escaping the fact that what happened that day would have an outcome that could theoretically affect the rest of his life.

That wasn't the sort of thing that just weng ignored.  
  
"It'll take a while. A couple hours at least." Qrow answered, pausing with his hand over a box of what looked like medical gloves. He looked back at James over his shoulder. "Any latex allergies?"  
  
"No." James answered, and Qrow nodded, picking up a pair of the gloves and a roll of paper towels. He made his way over to the workstation that he had built up next to James and set the things down for a moment before just pausing and going over everything that he'd collected for the session ahead.  
  
It was interesting to watch, James thought. There was something almost cute about the way that Qrow's face screwed up slightly as he pointed at the various things that were resting on the small table of supplies. When James was younger, he'd seen this sort of things a thousand times over when people would take inventory and check off lists in their heads.  
  
Seeing Qrow do it was interesting.  
  
"You do realize that this is probably going to be an all day project, right Jim?" Qrow asked as he finally lowered himself into the chair next to James. He took a moment to situate himself, and James took it as a final opportunity to adjust his position to take any pressure off of his spine. He didn't think that it was going to matter in the long run, but it was still worth a shot.  
  
"I do." James said, sighing. "But I think that it's important that it gets done." He paused and looked up at Qrow. "I'm guessing you want to get those stencils on me?"  
  
"Yeah, I mean." Qrow laughed and shook his head a little bit with those words. "I wouldn't mind getting that part done sooner than later since that's going to determine how well this whole thing actually goes."  
  
"Yeah, of course." James actually chuckled at that. Something about Qrow relaxing the way that he had was enough to leave James feeling a lot better about the whole thing. "I'd rather not have you freehanding this." He had to pause as he wondered whether or not Qrow would end up taking offense at hearing that or not. He doubted that Qrow would, but...  
  
"Yeah, I'd rather not freehand this either." Qrow laughed as he leaned back in his seat. "It takes forever and when you're looking for close to an exact match going freehand is usually just a pain in the ass more than anything else." He paused and his eyes went all soft. James hadn't expected it, but Qrow actually reached out and slipped his hand into James' for a second.  
  
"Besides," Qrow mumbled, his voice going gentle. "This is an important one and I really wouldn't want to mess up with you."  
  
Somehow, those words came with more meanings than James had originally prepared himself to think of. He didn't mind it that much, since that mostly felt completely in character for something that Qrow would say.  
  
If Qrow was treating this as a delicate situation, then James was willing to pour all of his trust into this man. He'd already given Qrow trust with his body in other ways, so what was adding permanent change to it on top of everything else?  
  
"Thank you." James finally managed to say, and he didn't expect what it ended up being like at all. He hadn't expected for his voice to come out as being just barely above a whisper, or for him to find himself fighting the urge to twist his body so that he could lean in and press a kiss to Qrow's lips, but it was there.  
  
He swallowed.  
  
"Qrow?"  
  
"Yeah, Jim?" Qrow asked. He was in the process of tearing off a paper towel to use. James figured that he was going to be going off to wet it in a moment, and then they were going to start actually applying it.  
  
"Can I just..." James shook his head. This was dumb. It was really dumb. It was excessively dumb for him to even be thinking about this sort of thing.  
  
Carefully, James lifted up a hand and brought it up to Qrow's cheek. He cupped it as gently as he could. If Qrow wanted to, he could push James away in a second and then all of this would be over.  
  
He could have sworn that he heard Qrow's breath hitch at the realization of what was going on in that moment. But Qrow didn't move to pull away or even show any sign of protest.  
  
James licked his lips and leaned in, twisting his body slightly as he leaned in towards Qrow so that he could press their lips together in their first kiss outside of a bedroom. He just hoped that Qrow wouldn't protest it too greatly.  
  
Qrow just sank into it, though. He relaxed under James' touch and picked one of his gloved hands up to rest it on James' jaw as he pulled James in a little bit closer to him.  
  
All at once, the entire world seemed to fade away around James. All that he became aware of was the feeling of Qrow's hands on him, and Qrow's lips, and even Qrow's scent- something mixed with strawberries.  
  
There was relief in that kiss. There was a silent " _everything will be alright,_ " and a reminder that there was going to be something after all of this was through. It was a sign of trust, and a reminder that they were going to be getting through this thing together.  
  
James felt his entire body beginning to warm up and his heart began to beat a little too hard against his chest, and that was when he forced himself to pull away from the kiss and get his head back in order.  
  
He breathed deeply and Qrow just rested his forehead against James's. His eyes were half-lidded, and his expression was somewhat flushed, but everything about it was gentle rather than hungry.  
  
James knew that his eyes were probably a little wetter than they should have been- at least, he was distantly aware of it.

But James also knew that he had _needed_ this. There was a certain sort of catharsis that came out of the kiss with Qrow that he couldn't deny, and so he was willing to have some wet eyes if it meant that he was going to feel a little bit better about what was to come. He closed his eyes in hopes that he could hide just a little bit from Qrow, though he was more than sure that it wouldn't be enough to do so. 

Qrow reached up and gently cupped the side of James' face once more, his thumb brushing over the curve of James' cheekbone. James let himself nuzzle into that touch just slightly, just enough that it would make him feel better about what was happening.

"Jim?"  
  
A heavy sigh escaped James and he nodded before finally opening his eyes and looking into Qrow's. He swallowed visibly, and he knew that Qrow could see it but James also didn't care.  
  
The two of them were probably a little bit beyond worry about this sort of thing.  
  
Their eyes met, and James realized all at once just how comforting Qrow's eyes could be. "Hey." He finally managed to get a word out, hoarse and quiet as it was. "We have things to do."  
  
"Are you going to be alright, Jim?" Qrow murmured quietly as he began to pull away. "Because that's-"

"Yeah." Swallow. "I know."  
  
James shifted so that he was sitting back in the chair again in a somewhat comfortable manner. He knew that it wasn't quite going to be enough, but he needed that little bit of physical comfort to be able to get him through things. Qrow was good, and James was fairly certain that he could be patient enough, but he needed that little bit of relief once again.  
  
He pushed his hair back out of his face with his right hand before he focused in on his left sleeve again so that he could once again roll it up and stop worrying about it. Qrow gently pushed James' hand away and leaned in to get it rolled up a good amount himself.  
It was somewhat comforting.  
  
"This is going to be fine, Jim." Qrow said, keeping his voice quiet as he stepped away from James to quickly examine his victim for the evening. James found himself watching the man the entire while, feeling mostly just confused about how he was actually feeling about the whole thing. "I think you can make it through this whole thing without too many issues, I know you."  
  
"Thank you." James managed.  
  
"And I know that you're probably worrying about having to pay me later since this has gone... well, a bit long." Qrow chuckled lightheartedly as he wet the washcloth that he'd picked out for them to use. "I'm still willing to give you a discount, all things considered."  
  
"Qrow that's-"  
  
"Jim, if you're about to say the word ‘unethical’ I think you're a _little_ late on the draw for it." Qrow laughed those words out. "I want to give you that discount and I was originally planning to." He paused. "The fact that you've fucked me doesn't change any of that."  
  
James felt his entire face flush and heat up at that. He squeezed his eyes shut but he knew that when he spoke it was with a sort of smile. "Can we just got on with this?"

"Impatient?" Qrow chuckled. "That's new."  
  
The feeling of paper being placed against James' arm was enough to make James pick his head up and look over at Qrow to see what was going on.  
  
Qrow had decided to start with the small stencil that was going to make up James' elbow at the end of things. He pressed a washcloth which had been wet with cool water against James' skin and just held it in place there for a minute. When Qrow finally pulled away, the stencil was applied and Qrow was looking for the next piece that was going to be going on.  
  
"So I'm thinking," Qrow began to speak as he found the second sheet of stencil paper that he'd gotten. "If you're feeling up to it after all of this, how's food sound?"  
  
That was a good question, James thought. A meal would be nice, but there was a lot of him that was mostly just sick of eating out all the time when he was in Vale.

It wasn't anything against Qrow, James mostly was just at a point where he missed home cooked meals. 

"Food sounds great." James mumbled, letting his eyes flicker shut for a second as he let out a quiet sigh. He could hear Qrow adjusting himself at his side, and the sound of machinery being toyed with, and that told James that this was finally happening.  
  
"Jim." Qrow's voice was quiet over the quiet hum of the machine in his hand. "Are you ready for this?"  
  
"Yeah." James answered, opening his eyes back up and focusing on Qrow's face for a moment. "I'm ready."  
  
Qrow nodded and leaned in with the machine after dipping it into some ink.  
  
The first run of the pen over James' arm was enough to leave James tensing slightly at the immediate sensation of the needle scraping against his skin. He let out a quiet sigh and forced himself to relax, even allowing his right hand to ball into a fist as Qrow went to work.  
  
For the most part, there wasn't anything said between James and Qrow while Qrow set to work. Eventually the buzz of the pen against James' arm drifted away from being something that he was very consciously aware of and it mostly just felt numb.  
  
He'd lost an arm and a leg, getting a needle scraped over his skin was _nothing_ by comparison.  
  
James didn't keep much track over how long he was there. Once in awhile he and Qrow would exchange some words to make sure that they both thought that things were going well, and after about two hours of James sitting for the tattoo, they took a break.  
  
Qrow seemed a little bit stiff from having to sit hunched over as he had, and James himself wasn't feeling the best at the moment. He wanted to be able to get up for a little while and walk around since his back was starting to feel a little bit sore as a result of the sitting.  
  
The tattoo artist didn't let him just get up, though. Qrow was there, gently wrapping James' arm so that nothing could happen to it and to ensure that nothing could get into it. Both of them knew better than to risk any sort of infection.  
  
"How're you feeling?" Qrow asked, looking up and into James' eyes finally.  
  
James shifted so that he could get up and had to stand up, although the motion came a little bit too stiffly. He took his time, and stretched once he was finally up. He then decided to just walk around the room for a little bit while Qrow made sure that everything he needed to have protected and covered was taken care of.  
  
"It's... numb." James answered as he put some of his weight onto his right leg, just to make sure that it wasn't too stiff after having to sit so still for so long. He was mostly expecting that he was going to have to deal with a bit of a limp for a while, but that wasn't the worst thing.  
  
"Yeah, that happens." Qrow commented as he finally took a step away from his end table. "You want me to order something in so that you don't have to walk around too much or-"

"I was hoping I'd be able to step outside and get some fresh air." James said, keeping his voice on the low end of the spectrum. "We could walk a bit and get something-"  
  
"We're better off just sticking around here." Qrow explained. "At least for the food. Your arm being wrapped up like that means that you have gotta be careful to make sure that nothing happens."  
  
That definitely wasn't what James had wanted to hear, but he figured that at the very least he would be able to go outside and walk around in front of the store for a few minutes. He wanted something to eat and to drink some water of course, but at the moment he mostly just wanted some cool air on his skin to help him relax.  
  
"In that case," James started with a sigh. "Should we order sandwiches?"  
  
"Sandwiches sound good." Qrow said, smiling as he went over to the small station where he'd left a laptop on. James watched as he began to look up menus for places that were in the area, and just waited patiently until Qrow had found somewhere that they could go ahead and order their meals from.

"You can go out and walk around if you want, Jim." Qrow said, looking over at James with his eyes a little bit lighter than James would have originally thought. "I'll be out to join you a minute, could you just go ahead and write down what you want?"  
  
James nodded and crowded in over Qrow's shoulder to get a good look at the menu. It was easy to figure out exactly what he wanted to get, but once he had it written down that was it. James stood up straight, stretched slightly, and then he was off on his way out of the shop so that he could get some fresh air.  
  
He needed to breathe.  
  
James stepped out of the front of the shop and sucked in the cool air before letting out a quiet sigh and beginning his walk down the street. He was going to get back Qrow as soon as he could, but for now he just needed the chance to get his head straight.  
  
Somehow once everything had started James had finally managed to get himself calmed down enough that he wanted to actually be able to go back into Qrow's office and finish this once he was feeling up to it.  
  
He leaned against a wall and crossed his arms over his chest, letting his eyes slip shut so that he could just relax for a little bit before he finally went back to see Qrow. James just concentrated everything he had on keeping himself calm and not paying too much attention to the fact that his arm was aching slightly.  
  
It wasn’t the worst feeling, but it was an ache nonetheless.  
  
The door to the store opened with a quiet ding and James let himself open his eyes to look over to Qrow.  
  
"You doing alright?" Qrow asked, leaning against the wall beside James. "I made the order."  
  
"Thanks." James said quietly. "I'll be sure to make sure to help pay you back for everything."  
  
"Don't worry about it." Qrow answered with a quiet chuckle. "It's not such a big deal." He shook his head and closed his eyes before letting out a quiet laugh. "I'll add it to your bill, how's that sound?"  
  
"I would like to know how much you're charging me sometime." James chuckled. "You do realize that I've been waiting to know that for quite some time now, right?"  
  
"Oh, I do." Qrow laughed. "But now that we're actually making it happen and getting things done I think it'll get easier to figure that out."  
  
There was a moment that went silent between the two of them.  
  
James had a feeling that he knew exactly what was going on in Qrow's head at that moment. He had things that he wanted to go ahead and acknowledge, and James had a feeling that Qrow wanted to talk about the same things.

There just wasn't any good way to talk about it.  
  
"Qrow?" James forced the other man's name out. "I... You know that once this is over I'm probably not going to go looking for another tattoo, right?"  
  
Qrow was quiet. He wouldn't look up at James for a little while, and that just left James feeling more and more uneasy about the fact that he'd brought things up. He probably shouldn't have, because he was pretty sure that he'd just accidentally told someone that he wasn't going to be a return customer.  
  
Which was probably a mistake on his part.  
  
"Yeah, I know that." Qrow said, quietly. "I was thinking that I didn't want to stop seeing you anymore, but..." He shrugged. "You and I don't have to just stop because I'm not working for you anymore."

"Yeah, but-" James swallowed, and he knew that it was visible. "Qrow, what do we actually have?"  
  
"Bed." Qrow laughed quietly. "We've got something between us, but I don't quite know what it is." He inhaled quietly and shook his head for a moment before finally speaking up again. "I don't want to let what we have go, though."  
  
"Neither do I." James mumbled, though he knew it came out too quietly. "Qrow, this is just... weird, you know?"  
  
"I know." Qrow responded quietly. "I don't think that the tattoo has to be the end of this, though."  
  
"I don't either." James said, quietly. "I'd like it if we still got to have something after all of this."

"There's no rule that we have to stop." Pause. "I don't want to stop."  
  
"Then..." James sucked in a deep breath and let his eyes drift shut for just a second as he thought of something that he could say to Qrow in hopes that it would be enough to resolve this. "Then we just… don't stop." He looked around and tried to cross his arms over his chest but winced and froze when he tried.  
  
Qrow noticed.  
  
"You wanna head back in?" The man's red eyes drifted down to James' left arm, sore and red as it was at the moment. "Food should be here pretty soon, and since all that you wanted was to get some air-"  
  
"Yeah." James forced a smile, and pushed himself off and away from the wall so that he and Qrow could go inside and get ready to enjoy their meals.

Somehow, this time when he walked back through the door to Emerald City Tattoos, it was the absolute easiest that it had ever been for him.  
  
James was glad for it.

 

* * *

 

It was late in the day.  
  
Every part of James' body _screamed_ at him. He was sore, his back was stiff, and he was pretty sure that his left foot had managed to fall asleep at some point during the sitting.  
  
Overall, James was mostly at a point where he was ready to crash and go to sleep at the absolute first opportunity that he got. Where that was or the circumstances of it all wasn't something that he particularly cared about- he just needed to rest.  
  
"Hey, Jim." Qrow's voice broke over the sound of the buzzing of his tattooing pen, which had mostly just turned into background noise at a certain point. The buzz disappeared, and James' ears were left feeling like they were still ringing with the sound.  
  
"Yeah?" James asked, realizing that his voice sounded like it had cracked a little bit. "What is it?"  
  
"Look." Qrow sounded a little too lighthearted and there was a part of James that wanted to snap and let Qrow know that there was a sort of headache that had begun to form in his head, but James decided against it.  
  
He shifted slightly to look down at his arm.  
  
James wasn't sure what to think of it at first. The piece that Qrow had tattooed on him was done- there was black in the places that it belonged in, there was silver and white in the places that it belonged too. Qrow had even bothered to go ahead and try to match the glow of the blue bars that James wore on his shoulder to prove that everything was in working order.  
  
"It's-"  
  
James tried to say something but he couldn't think of anything that he wanted to say to Qrow. No, that wasn't accurate. He couldn't think of what he shouldn't say to Qrow.  
  
He turned his left hand over, tracing his eyes over every line and every corner that Qrow had placed onto his skin as a permanent part of him.  
  
It was _perfect._  
  
"Jim?" Qrow leaned in towards James slightly, his eyes narrowed a little bit but not in a look of frustration as James had gotten used to seeing. "Talk to me."  
  
"You..." He shook his head. "It's perfect."  
  
"I know." Qrow chuckled the words out and leaned back in his seat slightly to make himself comfortable. "You like it?"  
  
"Yeah." James knew that his voice came out as barely above a whisper. He could feel his heart fluttering in his chest, and there was a part of him that really wanted nothing more than to just be able to break down and cry.  
  
He was overwhelmed, and he didn't know how he was supposed to tell Qrow that.  
  
"C'mon." Qrow said, quietly, tugging at James' right hand gently. "I've got a full mirror, maybe you want to take a look at how the full picture looks?"  
  
"Yeah." James managed, his voice cracking and hoarse. "Yeah." He shifted and tried to climb out of the chair, but he needed to lean against it for a moment at the realization that yes, his left foot had _definitely_ fallen asleep at some point.  
  
"You alright?" Qrow asked, watching the way that James had to lean against the chair for a moment. "Is it pain or-"  
  
"What?" James laughed, and for the first time he felt tears slip out of the corners of his eyes. He knew that wasn't going to be the last of it, either. "No, my foot fell asleep."  
  
Qrow stared at him, and then in a voice that was all too quiet to be considered as being anything close to confident, Qrow asked: "Which one?"  
  
James blinked. Normally he wouldn't have thought that this was something that he would have to explain, but he took it in stride. This wasn't a time to get frustrated with things.  
  
"The left one, Qrow." James said, shaking his head. "My right can't- no circulation."  
  
"Right." Qrow blinked. "Of course. That was a dumb question."

Qrow's eyes lolled over to the side a little bit with those words, and James couldn't deny for a second that there was something almost cute about the motion. It was a dumb question, but there was something about the way that Qrow had accepted it that James found himself being charmed by.  
  
He didn't say anything to Qrow, let out a warm chuckle, and once it was time for him to move and he could feel his left foot, James walked over in front of the mirror so that he could finally give himself a good look in the mirror and see what the completed picture was like.  
  
When he looked at himself in the mirror, this time it was almost nothing like how it had been the first time that he'd gotten to look at himself properly and see what he looked like. This time, there was something about it that was hard to comprehend and was ultimately just different. Perhaps it was the reality of what was happening.  
  
Perhaps it was the knowledge that this time when he left the office, he was going to be bringing something along that wasn't likely to fade in a few weeks. Instead, it was something permanent, and James even got to live with the great knowledge that he was going to be able to spend time with Qrow, even after everything.  
  
James had to take a moment. He closed his eyes and needed to cover his face with his hands, and almost had to draw away when the sting of his irritated skin got to be too bad. But he needed the separation from what was happening.  
  
He needed a lot of things.  
  
James sucked in a breath that bordered upon being completely ragged, and only paused when he felt a pair of thin arms that wound around his waist and refused to let him go anytime soon. He wanted to touch them, to pull Qrow in close to him and just enjoy that contact, but at that moment he couldn't just do that.  
  
He needed so much.  
  
"So." Qrow said, his voice quiet. "What do you think?"  
  
James could distantly make out the feeling of Qrow resting his cheek between James' shoulderblades. The first thing that James thought was that there was no way that could possibly be comfortable, but he didn't mind it. There was a comfort in it that James needed.  
  
"It's perfect." James said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Thank you for..." He paused. He knew that he wanted to thank Qrow for this, but he couldn't think of what specifically he wanted to say to Qrow. There was a filter that he needed to be able to turn on his mind that he couldn't quite get to. One that would help him be specific.  
  
"Thank you for everything." James finally managed. He closed his eyes and raised right hand so that he could just brush his fingertips against Qrow's wrist where it was wrapped around his stomach. Qrow shifted his hand slightly so that their grips could intertwine, and he peeked up over James' shoulder to see them in the mirror.  
  
"Hey," Qrow said, quietly. "It's nothing big." He squeezed their fingers together gently. "All in a day's work."  
  
James had to bite back a quiet sob that bordered on him and threatened to get out. He released their hands and turned in Qrow's grip so that he could wrap himself up around Qrow in a one-armed hug. He buried his face in Qrow's dark hair and inhaled the other man's scent for everything that it was.  
  
It was fruity shampoo and whiskey, it was comfort and warmth, it was frustration and relief all in one. It was Qrow.  
  
"Thank you." James managed again, this time equally quiet as it had been before. "Thank you so much."  
  
"I've got you, Jim." Qrow mumbled, just loudly enough that Qrow could hear it. "I've got you. Everything's good, and you're right here with me." James felt Qrow's fingertips brush at the short hair that was at the back of his neck. "You going to be okay?"  
  
"I'm wonderful." James said on a breath. "Just a little bit overwhelmed."  
  
"You're fine." Qrow said again before finally pulling himself away from James. He pulled himself away from James so that he could look up into the man's eyes and smiled at him. "You want me to get us food or something?" He offered, quietly. James figured it was just Qrow trying to offer another comfort.  
  
"Yeah." James said, quietly. "Payment, then food, and then..." He paused. "I suppose you haven't seen my house?"  
  
He watched Qrow's expression, and there was something special on Qrow's expression that made James' heart warm up. It was that slight smile and the softening of Qrow's rusty colored eyes at the realization of what James was suggesting.  
  
"You want that?" Qrow laughed quietly. "Because I definitely wouldn't mind seeing your place." He paused. "I'm sure you have a pretty nice place anyways. Seems like you would."  
  
"Well, I definitely wouldn't mind shar-" James stopped himself and reminded himself that this was probably an issue for later. "You know what, we should deal with this stuff one thing at a time."  
  
Qrow raised an eyebrow at that and his face screwed up a little bit as he tried to figure out what it was that James was talking about. But he relaxed after a minute, slipping away from James' arms a little bit more before he slipped his hands down into his pockets.  
  
"One thing at a time sounds great," Qrow finally said as he nodded over towards the door. "Want me to get you patched up and then we can get something to eat and after that..." The thin man shrugged. "Might as well get you home. I don't mind driving."  
  
James paused and then just nodded. He took his seat again on the chair that he'd called his for most of the day, and he waited for Qrow to do whatever he needed to in order to get them both feeling alright.  
  
James wasn't surprised at all by how hopeful the whole thing left him feeling.

 

* * *

 

They drove to Atlas.  
  
They crashed in James' bed.  
  
Nothing happened between the two of them, mostly because James was just feeling so exhausted from all of the events the day before that he hadn't had it in him to do much more than eat and curl up next to Qrow's body.  
  
Come morning, James was up first.  
  
He awoke wrapped up in Qrow's arms, and he had to peel himself away from the other man before he slipped out of the bed in hopes that he could at least get something for the two of them to eat in the morning. James scratched at his chest for a second with his right hand and slipped out so that he could get a little bit cleaned up before he started cooking.  
  
James slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him, trying to stay quiet mostly because he was worried about what would happen should he end up accidentally waking Qrow up.  
  
He stepped up to the sink first so that he could splash some water onto his face in hopes that it would be enough to help wake him up. James stared down into the sink for a moment and it was a long minute before he finally realized what was going on.  
  
His hands were resting against the rim of his sink, matching for the first time despite the redness and irritation on his left hand that was a result of the day before. He'd go ahead with making sure that it was taken care of properly soon, for now he had other things to deal with.  
  
For just a moment, James stared at himself in the mirror. There were a lot of things wrong with the person that he saw staring back there, but somehow he felt better about it. A lot better than he ever had before.  
  
He smiled softly at himself for the first time in years and slipped out of the bathroom to go and start on breakfast.  
  
When he reached the kitchen, Qrow was already there, blearily staring out a window in search of something that James didn't want to ask about.  
  
"Hey." James greeted him. "How's it look out there?"  
  
"Rainy." Qrow said, quietly before looking over at James. "How're you feeling?"  
  
James stepped in close to Qrow and let his arms snake around the other man. He let his eyes slip shut and rested his chin on top of Qrow's head. "Surprisingly well." He finally managed to say, though it was quiet and seemed to come out as barely above a whisper. "It's the first time in a while that..."  
  
"That?"  
  
"That I've been able to look down at my hands-" James wound his fingers in with Qrow's. "-And I feel like they both belong to me." Quiet. "It's just been a long time."  
  
"Not perfect though?"  
  
"No." James said quietly. "There's still going to be a long way to go but I think it's a good start."  
  
"I'm glad to have helped." Qrow scoffed. His shoulders shook slightly and James couldn't help but smile. "So what's next for you, Jim?"  
  
"First?" James asked. "Breakfast. After that-" James pulled back a little bit so that his and Qrow's eyes could meet. "After that I think it's just going to be day by day."  
  
"Is that so?"  
  
James reached up with his right hand to gently tilt Qrow's chin up before James pressed a kiss to Qrow's lips. "Yeah." He whispered when he pulled away slightly. "I want you there for it, Qrow."  
  
"I want to be there."  
  
"So that's just it then?" James said quietly. "Day by day?"  
  
"Until it stops working, Jim." Qrow pulled away from him finally. He was smiling brightly, and James never wanted to forget that look on Qrow's face for as long as he lived. "As long as you want me around, I'm here. And if you don't-" Qrow shrugged. "Just say the word."  
  
James blinked and cast a glance around his kitchen for a moment. Qrow looked right there. "Yeah." He finally forced himself to stay. "I don't intend to say it, you know that, right?"  
  
Qrow laughed.  
  
"I know, Jim." Another laugh. "I know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all comments and criticism are greatly appreciated.
> 
> [I'm on tumblr. Sometimes stuff happens. I'm always willing to take questions there!](http://tyrian-callows.tumblr.com/)


End file.
